The opening statement by Josep Borrell Fontelles at the EU Ambassadors Conference. video version. A clear-headed and mature explanation of our situation and challenges. "Our prosperity has been based on cheap energy coming from Russia. Russian gas — cheap and supposedly affordable, secure, and stable. It has been proved not [to be] the case. And the access to the big China market, for exports and imports, for technological transfers, for investments, for having cheap goods. I think that the Chinese workers with their low salaries have done much better and much more to contain inflation than all the Central Banks together.
So, our prosperity was based on China and Russia — energy and market. Clearly, today, we have to find new ways for energy from inside the European Union, as much as we can, because we should not change one dependency for another. The best energy is the one that you produce at home. That will produce a strong restructuring of our economy — that is for sure."