'This is Europe' debate in the European Parliament: Speech by Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany, 9 May 2023

'This is Europe' – an initiative proposed by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola – consists of a series of debates with EU leaders to discuss their visions for the future of the European Union. In his address to the European Parliament on Europe Day, 9 May 2023, a geopolitical EU was a central theme for the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz. He stressed that, in a multipolar world, the EU needed ‘a genuine partnership with the countries of Asia, Africa and South America, without Eurocentrism’. He called for an enlarged EU with an honest enlargement policy, also in the context of a geopolitical Europe. He supported Parliament’s calls for EU reforms, notably the use of qualified majority voting in the Council on foreign policy and taxes, and promised to promote such changes within the European Council.