Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about people, almost 80 million people in the European Union who have a greater or lesser disability. Almost 30%, Commissioner, are on the brink of poverty. Sure, we have a strategy for people with disabilities by 2030, but people need facts. I represent here in the European Parliament the Humanist Party in my country and we understand that we need facts, not words. Yes, we need to help Member States where they have no human resources, no budget to create these conditions for people with disabilities and we need to have this Centre and I congratulate the rapporteur for what she has presented here. I think we all need to support, to get to concrete things, because we also need more empathy from us. Yesterday I saw in Strasbourg how a person on an electric bicycle came across a person with a white cane. I think we all need to be more empathetic, but we need coherence in the European Union, true integration of these people and listening to them, because no one knows better than the associations of these people what obstacles they have and how they could be removed. Personally, I work in my country with associations of people with disabilities, but we need coherence across the European Union.

Commissioner, President, colleagues, citizens are waiting for concrete things, and today we can demonstrate that together, Parliament, the Commission and the Council, we can offer citizens something concrete, namely savings. Citizens enjoyed it enormously, and I think you all know, when roaming was introduced, it was simply a euphoria, because the citizen felt he had something concrete. The same goes for this charger. Of course, it has been said, waste savings are made here, money savings are made, but I, as Vice-President for the Internal Market, think, Commissioner, of the citizen. They don't have to buy seven, eight chargers anymore. Look, today I forgot my charger at home and I have to ask how many colleagues, to see what charger it has, to fit on my phone. Sure, that's a good thing, but I want to draw your attention, Commissioner, let's not forget to follow this directive: Continuous refurbishment, digitization - we have them in the program; let us supplement this directive so that we are step by step ... and let us not forget that the speed of decision must be increased. For more than 10 years we have been talking about this amendment of the directive and, finally, it has happened, but we need to increase our speed of decision and we need to convey to the citizen concretely what we do for consumers, not only the protection of quality, but also the protection of the money that a citizen spends. Good luck and congratulations to the rapporteur and the whole team on this success. I'm sure there will be a vote.

Madam President, Commissioner, the energy crisis is worsening, winter is knocking on the door. From my point of view and from the point of view of the citizens I represent, from Romania, the European Commission is mimicking solidarity. And I'll explain why, Commissioner. Romania has only half of the households that use biomass. Less than half of households, 44%, are connected to methane gas. One third of homes in Romania are directly connected to methane gas. Average household consumption of methane gas is below the EU average. Romania consumes less than one mega kilowatt per hour per inhabitant of electricity. There are other states that consume two, three times, four times, five times. And the Commission comes with the proposal to decrease consumption, all Member States, by 5%. Romania, if it consumes less than one mega kilowatt per inhabitant, if it decreases by 5%, equally, as would Sweden, which consumes 4%, what happens to the inhabitant, the citizen of my country? Don't you think solidarity means having equal consumption for all citizens in the 27 countries? Romanians are tired of the double measure: We're not in Schengen, we don't have visas for America, and you're making us live in the dark and by the candle.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing the impact of new technologies on taxation. It has been said here, of course, we must not run away from new solutions, new technologies. The only problem is that in order to establish a proper taxation according to the solution, we must have studies done and we must have them before new technological solutions and new technologies enter the market. From my point of view, if we do an analysis now, we could see that instead of having a gain with the entry of new technologies, with cryptocurrencies, we unfortunately have, as has been said here, a lot of tax evasion and a lot of citizens who have lost their income. This system has not been mastered and I think it is good to first make the rules in the internal market, because even so we had enough evasion in the internal market on the classic tax policies, there was no need to add. That is why I believe that with this report we will also be able to come to a common definition, we must have systems of national competence, but under supervision, in order not to create distortions in the market, not to create tax evasion and, ultimately, to have a coherence and growth also through the appropriate tax policies.

Madam President, Commissioner, since I have been here in 2014, I have heard how important SMEs are. What strategy should we have for SMEs? Here you are again talking about the state of SMEs. You talked about the lack of access to finance, the huge bureaucracy, that's what we're talking about. I am Vice-President of the SME Intergroup and Vice-President for the Internal Market, but nothing is happening. What Mrs Ursula, Madam President, said yesterday went like a bullet in the press in my country. How to send us to Putin with the bills? What is the attitude of the Commission President, instead of saying precisely how to make this price cheaper, how to dismantle that fictitious market in the Netherlands so that SMEs do not pay these enormous bills? And yes, you should know that SMEs are tired of words and want facts. I do not believe in what you said today, because it turned out that every time we just talked and nothing happened and that is why I propose directly, Commissioner, if you want to support SMEs, do not pass the ball from the Member States to the European Union. Yes, make a mechanism now for direct access to the European Union, to a European Union budget for SMEs. Don't go through 17 bureaucrats.

Madam President, Commissioner, the quality of the political act depends on how we choose people, how we know them. Obviously, for this, citizens need information, and information is done when you have a budget. I agree to regulate and make transparent the financing of political parties both at national and European level. The problem is that funding is only for big parties. People new to politics, small parties entering politics do not receive money from the budget, either at national or European level, although they represent some citizens. That is why I believe very much that we must also have this look in the Member States, because, after all, the European institutions are endowed, so to speak, with the human resources of the Member States. I personally do not agree that small parties, non-parliamentary parties, cannot be financed either at national or European level. We will not be able to improve the political class.

Dear colleague, you said that the State of the Union speech has been the best since you have been in this House, and yes, if I think about it, the President has very often said ‘I need’ and ‘I want’, it is true. Now, however, when we speak, 25 million European citizens have the minimum wage and we cannot talk about the future and the 2030 and 2050 targets without knowing what we are doing now, because the pace at which decisions are taken from "I want" and "I need" to concrete measures is very slow. We will vote only in October a situation, a cold month already, a cold season. What do you think we should... (The Chair interrupted the speaker) ... however, should we do something concrete to help both citizens and SMEs?

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the energy strategy must not be left-wing, right-wing, in the European Union or in the Member States. Energy policies and measures must be for people. I'm worried and I ask: Why do we discuss and pass 5-6 months in inventory the problems of the energy crisis and do not find the measures to apply them? We see that today we are debating, and it will only be in October that we will vote. Commissioner, it may be cold in October. How are people? Will it happen that in the situation of the COVID crisis no one will respond, if there will be children, will there be old people dying in the room, in the house, because they do not have heating? So there are solutions. I believe that we must not delay and find the right solutions. If citizens cannot pay their bills due to the energy crisis, neither on gas nor on energy, give money to install solar panels. Find concrete solutions, because this is how small and medium-sized enterprises and industry in the European Union will fall and we will have a humanitarian crisis. We will simply have a crisis for poor people who cannot pay their bills.

Mr President, Commissioner, frankly, I am glad that we have come to have such a debate and tomorrow to have a vote. Yes, they're poor, a lot of people are poor. The adequate wage, obviously we have to see what it means appropriately, because if in Germany, the hourly wage is 12 euros, in Romania it is three. But I have to say one thing very clearly. If a country opposes the introduction of a minimum wage, it means that it does not respect its workers. We also have a problem here, that we have worker mobility and I want every worker, no matter in which country they work, to benefit from the existence of a collective agreement and the existence of a minimum wage. That is why I believe that tomorrow we must vote and I believe very much, Commissioner, that we must connect this decision also with measures to make the economy work, because these increases, which are now also energy, all costs, affect very much especially micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. That is why I believe that we must not forget also economic measures, but we need to have this minimum wage and the protection of workers, no matter where they work.

Mr. President, it wasn't a question, it was an explanation. I hope that when applying, of course, it is also the responsibility of the Member States, but I hope that when applying it it will be absolutely pragmatic and with the calculation of the impact, because we cannot misfortune a generation now in the states that cannot comply with these targets. In my country it will not be possible, that is very clear.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think there is anyone who does not want energy efficiency. The problem is that we need to think about the context in which we are doing this. When we started the debate about energy efficiency, there were totally different conditions. I come from a communist country, Commissioner. I lived in the cold, I lived without light, I did my homework in the dark. I don't want the same thing to happen to my children and grandchildren. You should know that the citizens of Romania, in my country, are very worried, because the information is crazy. "Consume energy and limit yourself to what you can pay". We cannot ‘Procust’s home’, Commissioner. Countries are developed differently, we cannot have the same indicators, the same demands, at different salaries. I believe here that you need to be very flexible, to support Member States that are economically less developed, to be able to support vulnerable consumers, but also industry and small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises. I was rapporteur on behalf of the TRAN Committee, I tried to table a few amendments. I'm a professional engineer and I think we need to think about impact. That is why I ask you, Commissioner, and I also ask colleagues, to come to an agreement so that this energy saving does not lead to undignified life for our citizens. (The speaker agreed to respond to a blue card intervention)

Mr President, this sure report is important, a negotiation has been attempted to strike a balance between the decarbonisation of the aviation sector and the possibilities of industry. I have always believed, as an engineer, that we must be realistic when we take some measures and do them at the pace at which, as the Commissioner said today, the industry can reach those objectives, especially since, of course, the aviation industry in the European Union is not the biggest polluter, on the contrary, only 2% is the responsibility of aviation. I could not support it in the end and I abstained on this report because I do not think it is the optimal solution. I am closer to the Commission variant, which is why I hope that the institutional negotiations will achieve a better balance than it was today in Parliament, and I very much believe that we, the European Parliament, must always think about when we take decisions and about the impact that the application of our decisions immediately brings on the sector concerned and, ultimately, on the citizens.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, obviously cycling is not just fun and leisure. The implications are manifold, from health to the replacement of more expensive and polluting means of transport. Obviously, from my point of view, it is not a strategy at European level that prevents Member States from having subsidiarity and from thinking about their mode of transport. But we are thinking here of a European strategy, because yes, here's a colleague, in the last term, Mr Kramer, had a very beautiful project of 5,000 km, a strategy of a bicycle track from the Nordic countries to the south, to the east. So, I think this strategy is also obviously about funds, because you can't build now, every country builds highways, streets, without having these well-thought-out, connected bike lanes. Connectivity, this is what we are talking about in the European Union and - why not - it has been said here, I want to repeat, it will also have an implication on the production of bicycles in Europe and there will be jobs for more Europeans.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must start from the idea that air transport is extremely important for the economy and that air transport in the European Union is not alone on Earth. We have air transport in other parts of the globe, where emissions are certainly much higher than in the European Union, where we have only 2%. I agree that we need to work on decarbonising the aviation sector, but we need to do it rationally, and I am glad, Commissioner, that you have also thought about the impact on companies, on industry. We have to do it gradually. Technological neutrality is necessary, but we must do so at the pace at which industry can intervene. I will not be able to vote on all the amendments, for example, those that have an impact on small airports and small operators. We also have to think about them and yes, we see how indispensable transport is now, when it is messed up and what a negative effect it has on citizens, on the economy, on tourism. Now, we need to take sensible measures, and I am glad that there are colleagues who have said this. We need to decarbonise at the rate that industry allows.

Mr President, Commissioner, we are, in fact, discussing a subject that pertains to people's lives: heat, drought, fires. In my country, in the county where I live, they burned the wheat fields, they don't only burn the forests, they burn the grain. What are those farmers doing? They have bank loans. The cost of bank loans has increased, at least in my country. I'm left with nothing. We have a surveillance system, we have a civil protection mechanism, we also have a solidarity fund. The question is how do we get this money to the affected people as soon as possible? And yes, we are now dealing with the effects. We have to go to causes at the same time. But now it's burning and we have to put out this fire, Commissioner. So, I ask you on behalf of Romanian farmers, on behalf of Romanian citizens who have been without water for months. In whole areas it hasn't rained and it's just cracked ground and people drink the water with the portion. So we must intervene urgently, surely, in collaboration with the governments of the Member States, but we urgently need to intervene now.

Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President, the European Investment Bank has an extremely important role in the European Union's economy, especially now, amid the triple crisis - I could say - because we started with the pandemic, as a result of the pandemic, we had an economic crisis, obviously, and now the crisis of war. I have read the report carefully and appreciate the work of the EIB as a whole. But as a man coming from production, I say that banks, not only the EIB, all banks need to adapt their working tools to the concrete situation. And here, I have some numbers here. In 2020, and 66.1 billion, the report says, were concentrated in three countries: Italy, France and Spain. What does that mean? It means that countries in the east, like my country, Romania, have the administrative capacity and the financial capacity to borrow, but they do not have these capacities to borrow. And what does that mean? It means that regional disparities are growing, it means that we do not have the cohesion that we want, in fact, all the European institutions. I believe that the EIB must give priority to lending to social projects, to SMEs. Yes, Mr President, you said that 850 thousand SMEs were credited in 2021, but even the 20th part, if we think about how many SMEs we have in the European Union, did not receive these credits, and I also believe that the instruments that you must use now must specifically support social projects, projects of SMEs, micro-enterprises. Look, there are countries, like my country, where the reference interest rate at the bank reached 4.6%. It means that the entrepreneur, the SME cannot bear a cost of borrowing at that level. And this is what I think we must do together with the EIB and the Member States, obviously, to find solutions so that we can now help, in this impasse, in these overlapping crises, the economic environment, because, after all, without the functioning of the economic environment, we have no budget either at national or at European level.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have learned from a very young age that an injustice you do not remedy with another injustice, that solidarity must be done in such a way that you do not create other serious things. And yes, I speak from the perspective of my country, Romania. We were very open to helping refugees. Now we are very open to help transport grain, but we have problems related to the quality of infrastructure, the quantity of means of transport, we have problems even with the human resource. Therefore, Romania should not be left alone just because it is at the border and then be accused of not facilitating the transport of grain. And yes, the second issue is related to national farmers, farmers in my country, who have already raised the issue that there is no rigorous control of cereals that cross to be exported to third countries and cereals that remain inside our country, inside Romania, or even inside the internal market. That is why I believe, Commissioner, that concrete measures are needed. Everyone said to fix it, but what are the solutions? The solutions are very clear from my point of view, budgets and administrative support to be able to have special crossing lanes, but also a control of what enters and exits Ukraine.

Mr President, Commissioner, of course, I regret that we no longer have the Council here, it is probably on its way somewhere, Mr President. I wanted to tell him that he informed us here that he had prepared a European political community. I wanted to remind him that, historically, the European Union must be an economic community. And what do we do for it: for the people of the European Union, for the countries that are lagging behind, for the regions that need more cohesion, for the citizens? What about the food crisis? What about the energy crisis? And I wanted to ask the President: What is happening in the Netherlands? My country had an unfair resolution. In the Netherlands, I see that governments have taken out law enforcement and are shooting at farmers, at those farmers who provide us with our food in the European Union. Unfortunately, we have no one to turn to. Mr Vice-President of the Commission, please inform the President and I want an answer. Do we or do we not have one union? Will my country be in Schengen or won't it be?

Madam President, Prime Minister, I appreciate, I tell you from the outset, the priorities of the Czech Presidency and I wish you success. I come from Romania, I know your country well. I was a child when, in 1968, your country was invaded by Russia, and I rejoiced when my parents suffered alongside the Czech Republic and when my country opposed the entry of Russia. But, Prime Minister, you have spoken here of solutions, reasonable solutions to solve your priorities. One of them is the internal market, you mentioned it too. The internal market is fragmented, Prime Minister. I am Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Internal Market, I have raised this issue to 16 Chairs. You're the seventeenth, I hope you'll fix it. We cannot have two Europes, Schengen and non-Schengen. We cannot have second-class citizens and please, Prime Minister, do not disappoint me as the French Presidency, to which I have asked this, because, yes, my country meets the technical conditions of 2011 and this Parliament has voted several times for the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into Schengen. I therefore ask you, Prime Minister, to complete your priorities also with the internal market union, without having two internal markets, Schengen and non-Schengen.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on the issue of care, I believe that there are three main directions in which we must act. Of course, it falls within the competence of the Member States. I know the problem very well in my country and in the countries of the East. We have a problem, on the one hand, with those who do the act of care, very often they are treated without dignity, they do not have an employment contract. We know very well that from the East many people have gone to the West to take more money and do this act of care. On the other hand, we have the problem of the caregivers. Very often, the act of care is not of quality, and we have the problem of infrastructure. Commissioner, if we do not include a budget in the European strategy to allocate money for infrastructure, because, for example, in my country, we do not have capacities for the elderly, who cannot be cared for in the family and who need these centres, homes for the elderly, where they can be cared for properly, we will not be able to resolve the situation. I have been trying for some years to convince the Commission that the answer we receive systematically from the Commission must also be allocated, that elderly people must be cared for in the family, it is absolutely absurd, because they are people who have no place in the family, they no longer have families, and for this we must allocate budgets from the social budget, from the Social Fund, in order to be able to have places for these people who deserve our respect until the last day of life.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, here is, once again, a deadlock in the Council. Yes, hiding under subsidiarity that taxation falls within the competence of the national state is ridiculous, because here we are talking about an agreement to put an end to the scourge, to put an end to tax evasion, which is transnational. Let's be serious! They cannot fight SMEs in a Member State or even a Member State against tax havens. That is why we, Parliament, have voted massively to have this agreement, and I very much believe that we cannot get rid of this inequality, after all, and I support that both Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 be resolved through this agreement. Yes, the role of the Commission and the Council is to get to the implementation of what we voted for, to defend European citizens, to defend European businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises, and to have ethics and fairness, to pay this minimum tax of 15% and corporate tax where the multinational operates.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, tonight I want to talk about the rights of carriers, freight forwarders, in the European Union market. I have received many petitions and recently I was on a visit from the TRAN Committee to France to see whether or not the Mobility Package we voted on here is having a negative effect. And yes, we found that, as I said in the debates on the mobility package, we have unsecured parking lots. I remind you that a year ago, a Romanian truck driver was killed in a parking lot. Nothing much has happened since then, the research is not over. Shooting drivers also complain about unjustified and unbalanced controls. I asked and I ask, Commissioner, I wrote to the Commission recently, that there should be a statistic in all Member States with the frequency of checks on cars and trucks, depending on the country of origin. I have concrete petitions that in France, for example, shootings from Bulgaria, Romania and Eastern countries are frequently controlled. I think there should be such a statistic. I do not believe that there must be discrimination and I also believe that we must ensure equal conditions of transport. Drivers are asked to read the documents in French, English, German. We spoke then that there must be documents in the language of that country, because we cannot force a driver to know 24 languages.

Madam President, Commissioner, frankly, I regret that this important project is being debated very briefly, without allotted time and at such a late hour. I believe that we must be interested in the future of international investment, in the policy that we are doing on international investment, because yes, and in my country I have met exactly what the rapporteur was saying here: heavy money is sometimes paid from national budgets for investments that have not complied with the conditions of ethics and equity in that country, on equal terms with domestic investors, and Member States cannot win, because, yes, they go to arbitration before going to national courts. That is why I believe that, first of all, the Commission - we do not have the right to legislate -, the Council, must reach ... to have a legislative act and a new policy on international investment. Yes, we need them in the European Union, but under conditions of fairness and ethics.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, I took the floor here today, because I wanted to ask you, Minister, - do you conclude your Presidency - if you do not think that the Council should never exist, should it never be missing from the agenda and the discussion about the situation of citizens in the European Union? Today I had a debate in my country about the perspective of the European Union and I was asked what is happening with the future of the European Union? People are impoverished. I do not know, Commissioner, what the President meant by the wind blowing in Europe, but people have become impoverished. The wind blows in their pockets. I want to ask the Council that from now on there should be no Council meeting without discussing these things and I cannot not end with bitterness, Mr. Minister, that in six months the French Presidency failed this time too to put Romania on the list of countries that deserve to be in Schengen, because it complies with all its criteria. This discrimination leads to skepticism and mistrust. We need to enlarge the European Union, but we also need to think about how we act inside.