Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-21-Speech-3-010-000"
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"en.20121121.4.3-010-000"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office, President of the Commission, José Manuel, I do not know if I should make a speech: I fully support yours! I do not need to repeat it but I will just echo a few comments that you made and look at them in more detail, although I feel that you covered everything.
We have to fulfil this responsibility in order to support the NGOs that look after these people voluntarily. Removing this funding from the budget is not really a sign of solidarity; it is exactly the opposite. I am counting on this Parliament: we must not allow this position to be attacked.
We will defend the Europe in which we believe: not a sum of countries that pick and choose from the menu of common policies, but a real union of 27 that is united, responsible and prosperous.
We are at a crossroads. It is our duty, ladies and gentlemen, to stand firm if things do not move in the right direction, and it is also our duty to go beyond the selfish, national positions in our various countries to pave the way for the Europe of the future.
The only thing that has not been said is that with EUR 1.1 billion or EUR 1.13 billion, the budget that we have today, we can continue our policies; but below EUR 1 billion, we cannot do anything. I think that the Commission and Parliament have to stand firm in relation to what is happening now in the Council.
As you said, on the one hand, there are those who want a long-term budget that can meet the challenges ahead: because the European budget is an investment budget and not a budget of expenditure; because we need it to relaunch growth and job creation and, in my opinion, no Head of State or Government is opposed to that. Then there are those who want a reduced budget to make short-term savings. In these conditions, do we really need a summit this afternoon? We need to meet to discuss, but not to reduce, the budget.
The European Parliament’s position is clear, however; this position is now that of the majority in Europe and 517 Members of this Parliament voted for a multiannual financial framework (MFF) that is realistic and meets our ambitions. Sixteen Heads of Government are following this line and they met last week, as you said. If I were to give them one piece of advice, I would say: ‘be united at the Council and stand firm when it comes to defending our common budget’.
At the risk of repeating myself, those who see only a free trade area and a single market in Europe are lying to themselves and they are lying to their citizens. The European Union is, above all, a Community of values, including that of solidarity. Did you know that, through the European Stability Mechanism, the Estonians and the Slovakians are helping to fund pensions in Greece, which are even higher than their own? I wanted to highlight this – and it is not said often enough – because these countries believe in the added value of Europe.
Ladies and gentlemen, my group is convinced that the European Union needs a sound, solid, responsible budget because, with the crisis, it is the only way for certain Member States to make investments. In the Baltic countries, for example, a Prime Minister told me last week that without funding from Europe, railway lines will continue to be connected to Moscow, and not to Europe. That is not what European integration means. However, like us, the Baltic countries need these connections to Europe. To achieve the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy, we will need more than a trillion euros worth of investment in infrastructure networks. Yes, most of these investments will be private, but without European support, without cofinancing on our part, these projects will not see the light of day because of a lack of start-up capital.
Let us take another example: we decided to invest nearly EUR 270 billion so that all European households and all our businesses benefit from broadband between now and 2020. However, if we had waited for private investment alone to achieve this, we would only have reached EUR 50 billion. That would mean no broadband for Europe as we would be EUR 220 billion short. These investments are necessary for our businesses, however. They create jobs, they stimulate the economy, and they contribute to our competitiveness. The only way to get out of this economic crisis is to develop through investment.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a crossroads. Either we learn the lessons of these last 60 years and we work together to relaunch Europe around peace, solidarity and competitiveness, or we trap ourselves in selfish, nationalist positions and founder together.
The 16 Member States plus Croatia who met last week in the European Parliament demonstrated that there is a core of Member States who want to move forward together. We, in the European Parliament, are going to defend our position on the budget. We will defend the European aid programme for the poor, which you mentioned. The proposal to reduce this programme by EUR 400 million is unacceptable. We will not allow this programme to be touched, even if we have to make an effort on all the other budget lines. It is out of the question to sacrifice aid to our poorest citizens, especially since their number will grow with the crisis."@en1
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