Debate contributions by Andrey NOVAKOV

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, I think this debate shows one thing very clearly – that we are prepared to face a stress factor from outside. Inside the Parliament, including the Commission, something that I cherish quite a lot is that we stick together and we are going to make things at least better than they are. But that shows one thing, to me at least – the European Parliament, just like the founding fathers designed it almost 80 years ago, is the guarantee that the people of the European Union, more and more often, will say that they are from Europe, not specifically some other Member State. In Africa you have 52 countries, but if you ask any of them where they are from, they say Africa. When Europe is united by rules like this – when you know that you are protected by something voted in the European Parliament, a Parliament that you made with your own voice – I think this is way bigger than a single report or each of us. It is something that we should further continue. I think this report is going to go down in history, that's for sure. Not because it is an unprecedented second reading procedure, which was not coordinated with the European Parliament, but because it is going to unite us and we are going to show how much that means. It means a lot of power that we are going to use. The Council is divided, and this time we're going to win.

Mr President, Commissioner Tzitzikostas, dear colleagues, there is no other way to put this, other than to say that the European Council is trying to take away 60 % of the compensation of all passengers. Sixty. By the way, the Council looks to be absent at the moment in that crucial debate, and I am happy that we can rely on politicians like Commissioner Tzitzikostas in order to get the day rolling and get the job done. Why am I starting my speech with this? It's mainly because I believe we could do way better. After 11 years of negotiations, we can achieve more than not improving the rights of the passengers and, in fact, making them worse. I don't remember the last time something like this happened. Mark my words: tomorrow, with your support, this Parliament will achieve unanimity and support what is going to be a very clear sign to the Council that it is not going to play games anymore with us. Enough is enough. I think there are many other ways to support an airline than cutting passenger rights. You can support the airport, you can decrease the airport taxes, you can decrease the air traffic control taxes or any other way of optimisation. And the airlines could benefit from many things: legroom, champagne, sandwiches. But you cannot benefit from a seat belt, right? You don't sell security in any way. This is something that is given, it should be there and it should be for granted. This is what we are fighting for. We can do many compromises. We've been learning and teaching in this House how to do compromises – but not with passenger rights, not with the rights of the voters. We cn negotiate how to improve them, but to accept making things worse and accepting the proposal of the Council to increase the delay from three to four hours? There is no chance. The whole debate today is going to be one hour, and they are asking the passengers to wait for four or six hours at the airport – six hours in which your kid's birthday will be over, the interview for the job you are applying for will be over and your connection for sure will be over. No more compromises with this. The plenary vote tomorrow will show one thing: that we cannot wait anymore. I think we gave enough time and the fact that there is not a single amendment tabled for this procedure means one thing and one thing only: it says to the European Council that this Parliament is not going to step back, this Parliament is not going to water down the people's rights that they enjoy at the moment. We can improve them, we can make them better, but we cannot make them worse. I think this is the least we can do for the voters outside who, by the way, are protesting again. So we have to be careful. Finally, I love aviation. I understand that we need an industry that is running on profit and makes good profits, but I do not think that we can find a way to increase the benefits and the profits of aviation by making customers less satisfied. And they will be more satisfied when they have the right to sit next to their children without having to pay EUR 35. If a suitcase is one centimetre bigger than what it is supposed to be, EUR 75 is not the price that you should have to pay. I think we can all agree on that. When there are people on board with disabilities, they should be the first to be served and not be punished for the really hard luck that they have. I can promise you one thing: the team of the European Parliament is going to fight for the rights of the passengers, and we're going to win this battle.

Mr President, Commissioner, I was born in the People's Republic of Bulgaria – back then part of Soviet-dominated communist world. I don't remember much of those times, but I know one thing for sure: the system was lying about everything. It was lying that there will be milk in the grocery stores and lied that nothing had happened in Chernobyl. The same system that lied that nothing had happened in Katyn Forest, the same system that had lied that nothing had happened in the Gulag, the same system today is telling us that this is not a war, and that this is a special operation. So please forgive us that we are not so enthusiastic and don't believe everything they are saying. In 1925, all countries decided never to use poison gas in combat, and yet all countries kept their gas masks. With this, I'm saying that the peace deal is up to Ukraine. It's their land and their people. We should support the victim of aggression and never stop investing in our defence capacities. We made this mistake after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We should not do the same mistake again. We should develop our own defence capacity. We should develop our own potential.

What I am saying is that we have to protect ourselves. The drones were flying over Poland, over Germany – your own country – they were flying over Denmark. That has nothing to do with the pipelines on the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

Madam President, dear Commissioner, colleagues, I think the fairy tale is over. The world we built and lived in after 1989 is over. It's not the same and it won't be the same again. We tore down the Berlin Wall in order to escape from the Iron Curtain. Today, we have to build a new wall – a drone wall – to keep the Iron Curtain away. Those of us who are born and raised east of Eden can sense this very well, because we lived in this. I think this is not a war, a battle for territories or for resources. Those drone attacks are a battle for a way of life, a battle between two civilisations and two cultures, one of which is not recognising human life as the highest possible value. This is why we have to defend ourselves and the gap between our perception and reality should disappear. We have to face reality and prepare to be a peaceful pacifist with the capabilities to defend ourselves.

Madam President, dear Commissioner, I'm sure that presenting the MFF proposal on the last working day of the Parliament is a coincidence, because it goes against the spirit of good cooperation and friendship between the European Parliament and the Commission. I do not know what is inside this draft report, but I just guess that if there is a single pot of money inside instead of a dedicated cohesion fund, we will be against. I don't know what is inside, but I guess that if mayors, local authorities, farmers and rural areas are not on board in the decision‑making process, we will be against. I'm not sure what is inside, but if it goes against the dedicated funds for agriculture and rural development, we will be against. We are in favour of many other things as well: of pushing forward investments in our economy, of protecting our borders, and of investing in the most vulnerable regions, because cohesion policy is part of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Madam President, Mr Tzitzikostas, I think that the new proposal for passenger rights has a fundamental task from which we must start. And she is, if she can, not to make things worse than they are now. I think that's good for the start of the conversation. I have been involved in many legislative procedures, but this is the first one that makes me gasp. First, because we had to find a balance between passenger rights and saving the airline industry in Europe, and there are proposals that harm both. On the one hand, at the moment, if your flight is delayed for three hours, you are entitled to compensation. I hear about proposals that should increase this period to 4 hours. Anyone who supports this, I invite him to an international airport of his choice in Europe together to wait 4 hours until someone from his family celebrates a birthday, or until his family vacation fails, or while he is late for a job interview. For the European Parliament, this must therefore be an absolute red line. No to the extension of the period after which compensation is due in the event of a flight delay. On the other hand, I have to say that airlines generate one trillion euros in Europe's economy, one trillion. Two million people are directly employed in the aviation sector, and we cannot demand miracles from this sector. Then when we ask for something for free, know that someone will pay for it. So what I'm going to finish with is this. Colleagues, if someone ever offers you something for free, keep in mind that it is most likely you who are the product.

Madam President, Mr Vice-President, Mr Nesci, I would like to start with grazie mille to you for your work and dedicating so much of your focus to rural areas. I don't need a written speech to talk about rural areas, because I am proud to come from this kind of society. In rural areas, your neighbour is more than your family, and this is something that we should cherish and enjoy in Europe. And the only thing that keeps us away from seeing rural areas as a demographic desert is the cohesion policy. The people who live in those areas don't need any Amsterdam level of achievements or Paris level of tourism. Very simple things will keep them in the places that they love: a good road (that is not taking innocent human lives in car accidents), clean water, good education and health care. And that's it. Our history shows that during the crisis, people go exactly to those havens in the rural areas. And the first and most important thing that we can do and deliver here from the European Parliament, at least not to make those people lives more complicated than it is at the moment with our legislation – make our regulations easy to read as a newspaper. When we deliver funding for those regions it should be clear what we require and what we provide. So I think we can rely on those people to keep Europe up and running, as they do so far.

Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I am making this statement as a Member of the European Parliament, but also as part of the reserve of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Bulgaria. Today in Bulgaria we celebrate the day of bravery and I believe that more than anything our budget needs bravery, because the dice of fate have assigned us to deal with problems that we did not think would come to our heads. There is only one role of our budget – it is to reach every person, every village and solve their problems. There are 24 languages spoken in Europe, and if we put in the dialects, it's probably going to be 240. But one is understandable everywhere, and that is the language of money. That is why every euro should be used to solve people's problems, not to create more problems. That means building roads that don't kill people, building hospitals that save lives, building dams that solve Europe's water crisis, and building a defence that doesn't depend on anyone else. It is time to make Europe a leader all over the world and make every country in the European Union strong again.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, dear colleagues, we are having this debate at a very crucial moment. I would like to start by thanking Mr Protas for his work, because he dedicated a lot of his time, and he is a decent man who is doing a good job. In times when such crucial decisions are taken, I think those who contribute have to be mentioned. I would like to congratulate Mr Fitto for his efforts to increase the absorption rate of cohesion policy, and to speak to those who don't believe in the future of cohesion. Because the future of the cohesion policy means the future for Europe. The Founding Fathers put cohesion policy in the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union. So, no cohesion policy means no European Union. I hope that with this we are going to put an end to the debate about the future of cohesion. Very rightly so, the Founding Fathers decided to have cohesion policy to balance the imbalances of the single market. So we need regions and cities in. I am against – and a lot of other colleagues are against – further centralising cohesion policy and isolating mayors, regions and cities from the governing of this policy. We need more Europe at local level, not less. Every euro spent at local level solving local problems means more Europe tomorrow.

Madam President, Onorevole Fitto, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, European cohesion policy has been responsible for billions of investments in kindergartens, in schools, in water supply systems and in energy efficiency projects. However, today it looks like a sleeping beauty. We have EUR 370 billion allocated for this policy, and we have only 10% spent to the final beneficiaries five years after the beginning of the programming period. So we have to act. And I welcome the efforts of Vice-President Fitto in that direction, because we have to act rapidly. Otherwise, if we don't modernise this policy, it will look old-fashioned. If we don't adapt this policy to the current realities, it will die, like every other living creature which is not capable of adapting to the changing environment. I think that it's the right time to adapt with the challenges that are coming with the war in Ukraine. We have to, once again, create flexible rules that we can provide to the Member states, invest in dual-use companies. We can simultaneously do two separate things. One is supporting European defence industry, supporting start-ups in Europe, supporting industry in Europe and creating jobs and helping our defence efforts that we have to create as joint efforts in Europe. And I think now we don't have to be stubborn. We have to find a common language with the Commission and create a way to use all the capacity of the cohesion policy without losing any of the funds, without any the commitments and, finally, support the Member States in what they need, namely defence capacity.

Mr President, Madam Vice-President, dear colleagues, I think those 100 days are among the toughest and hardest in the post-war history of Europe. I think it's time for leadership and for tough decisions, and only the strongest one will remain in history. I think the lessons have been learned from COVID, from the war in Ukraine, from the energy crisis and inflation. I think this time the European Commission is doing it by the book. It's quite easy to sit and criticise and look for a reason to be critical, but I think this is an unprecedented situation in which the Union has to take decisions. I think so far we are adapting very well. We are adapting our legislation, we are adapting our approach. Even the European Parliament changed and created a committee on defence because the times have changed and this is normal. Here, when somebody is calling for peace and at the same time is encouraging war on another fellow Member State, it's like trying to lose weight eating burgers. It's not the same. We have to make an effort. I think Ms von der Leyen and the Commission deserves respect, that they took that enormous responsibility in these hard times and preparing their budget, their staff and their way of work in a wartime manner. That deserves support and at least a bit of understanding from our side: cooperation and finding a way to contribute, not to make things worse.

Colleagues, I have a task for you. There are 285 million cars in Europe. Let's assume that tomorrow morning they all become electric and live in unison with Mother Nature. Question: What will happen at eight o'clock in the evening when each of these electric vehicles is plugged into the power grid? Answer: There will be no light bulbs in Europe. Conclusion: We don't need any bans, we need a free market. People know better than us how to spend their money. Promoting new technologies is one thing, forbidding others is another, and it's wrong.

Madam President, the Bulgarian state was established in 681, making it the oldest in the European Union. For nearly 14 centuries, we've learned that dealing with empires isn't easy. We started with the Byzantine, then the Ottoman and finally the Soviet. And we learned the hard way that when an empire tells you, "We're taking a little more and there's no more," you can't usually believe that. That is why the wise Bulgarian people have said that when the bear plays in the neighbors, it will most likely come to you. And the bear, dear colleagues, does not stop playing and it does not seem to me that we are aware of it. I will be calm if I see enthusiasm in this Chamber to defend ourselves and Europe as I have seen enthusiasm to save the planet, the universe and whatnot. It's up to us, and it's good to set an example. It's time to take care of ourselves. We can arm ourselves as much as we want, but we need people to show courage.

Madam President, dear Commissioner, I think one of the key characteristics of a family is that when some of the family suffers, the rest of the family members are getting together to support him or her and to help overcome the crisis. All the Member States, all the way from Finland down south to Bulgaria, representing more than one third of the European Union and 100 million in population, are the region that absorbs the consequences of the armed conflict in Ukraine. These Member States are securing a good night's sleep for the rest of Europeans. And much like a family, we need support in that period, in that crisis. Concrete and bold moves that support precisely those regions, because all the citizens – from truck drivers to farmers – are suffering heavily from this conflict. Therefore, the bold move is called Eastern Region Facility, a new facility that supports those Member States because they suffer more, because this is how family does it.

Madam President, how good it is to have a speech when there is someone in the room, thank you for that. Dear colleagues, the European Parliament is not a political machine that wakes up only before elections. It's our duty to protect citizens every single day – every single day. It doesn't matter if we talk about travellers, consumers or workers. It's our duty to protect them. If you board a plane, if you take the train or if you drive across borders, you have to be safe and protected, and you have to know that your rights in Europe are guaranteed. If your flight gets cancelled, then you need a single phone number to call. If your luggage is lost, then you have to have a single phone number to call and a passenger's rights have to be strengthened – I believe the European Commission Work Programme have to reflect on that. To protect citizens means to protect jobs. We cannot allow any more policies that make symbolic European companies move from Brussels and Wolfsburg to China and Mexico. To expand is one thing. To close our own factories and move them abroad is completely another. For this reason, we have to refuel our industry – not necessarily with fossil fuels, but to refuel again – and to protect our workers, to protect our industry, to protect our continent.

To form a government these days has proved to be a political luxury. It turned out to be difficult not to beat in the elections, but to form a regular cabinet. It's hard not to be first, but to rule. Alas, this also happened in Bulgaria. After several years of darkness, experiments, a point was put with the election of a regular government at the end of last week. The formation of this government was elevated to art, art for patient, forward-thinking and experienced politicians who returned to fashion after years of experimentation, audience play and masquerade, including many mistakes for beginners. This concerns you and I inform you, because security in Bulgaria is a security for Europe. We're guarding the Schengen border now. That is why I would like to congratulate the leader of the party that achieved this breakthrough, Mr. Borisov, and to wish the new Prime Minister Zhelyazkov the strength to bring Bulgaria back on track. As for the opposition, I wish it wisdom, and if it can't help, make sure it doesn't get in the way.

Madam President, dear colleagues, we owe humility to the victims of the floods, and we owe a rapid response to those who survived. Why do we owe this? Because last week was Spain, but before that we had plenty of other countries. It's obviously a European problem; we need a European solution. I think our next big European target should be zero deaths from natural disasters. In order to achieve that, we need a top responsible person from the European Commission for that, just like a Vice-President responsible for cohesion policy. We need a very rapid response to this issue, including the RESTORE Regulation, adopted in the fastest possible way without any delay from Parliament or from the Council. We have to disburse this EUR 18 billion for those who are affected. I am afraid that's not enough, but at least it's something as a very beginning of a response to this issue. Finally, we need guarantees, including, in mandatory European law, risk management and buildings resilient to these natural disasters – guaranteed by our law. Because natural disasters could ruin a village. They could bring down a government. But, after all, we are those who owe a response to those affected. Today is Spain. Tomorrow will be something else. We have to adapt quickly and we have to react in the fastest possible way.

Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, let me get straight to the point: every problem is local, every solution we vote here is implemented locally. This is why, no matter what happens with cohesion policy in the future, no matter what kind of reforms we are going to conduct, this policy should remain local. It should be based on the shared management principle. But we have a bigger problem than the cuts. We have bigger problems than the language we are using here not being understandable to local authorities, because after all, the absorption rate is hopelessly low, which means that there is no interest to this policy. We have to be better at explaining why this is important and what we are doing here – and by saying we, I am putting myself in the first place – because if the mayors of the regional authorities are not interested in this policy, it's already dead. We don't have to wait for any reforms to come. If nobody is interested in using this policy, it's already gone. So help me promote this policy back at home, because when this plenary session is over, then we fly back not just to the Member State, but to our constituency, to our village, to our city, to our local community and then we have to explain why this mayor should apply for more EU funds and apply it better in order to implement this project in the service of its people and with the support of the Union. Finally, I welcome the initiative of the Commission of disbursing 10 billion in support of the Member States who suffer from the floods. This is the way we should support part of our family when they suffer.

Mr President, the railway line between Sofia and Gyueshevo was opened on 16 July 1910. For 115 years now, the Bulgarian train has been waiting and cannot pass on the other side of the border. He can't, because there's no line. You are probably wondering why I am bothering you with a problem that is in a region between two countries, one of which, on top of that, is not part of the European Union. The truth is that this railway is the prototype of corridor number 8 from Tirana, through Skopje to Sofia. Its deviation, thanks to which we now rely on the preservation of Europe's defence capacity in this part and on this flank. Unfortunately, in recent weeks, the government in Skopje has publicly announced that it has no intention, and after 115 years of waiting to build this railway. Our common defence depends on it. Reinforcements must pass through it to protect Bulgaria and Romania in the event of a conflict. I call on us to take all possible actions, according to our rules, to ensure that the government in North Macedonia finally completes this project and to preserve our defense capability in Bulgaria and Romania, and in the Western Balkans in general.

Mr President, dear families affected by these natural disasters, I am apologising to you that you saw political fights this morning in Parliament. I can assure you that we all know that our resolutions and debates are not going to ease the pain that you feel, will not help you to overcome the grave consequences that you suffer. I can assure you that we know you believe more in actions and less in words. Therefore, you have to be sure there are enough people in this Parliament, including myself, who will fight to the very end to shorten the time of reactions of the European Parliament and the European Union in that kind of situations, and enlarge the budget of our funds, who are going to support you immediately when necessary, in the sufficient manner. I think that zero emissions is not a bad target, but zero victims in natural disasters is a better target. We all should adapt. And I know it's possible because every summer we have fires. Every spring and every autumn we have floods. We learn our lessons. Now we have to act. I think we have all the instruments we need only will.