Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, The Commission said earlier: Active and practical solidarity is characteristic of Europe. This sentence becomes an empty promise when one hears that the financial means for mutual help have already been used up. What kind of demands would come, that was already clear when reading the corresponding articles: In turn, the entire EU budget is now inflating due to climate change. Ladies and gentlemen, this demand is wrong. Firstly, it is not only anonymous climate change that is responsible for many of the damage that has occurred, but also very concrete personal ignorance on the part of individual decision-makers. Secondly, we should further strengthen the existing Solidarity Fund under the existing budget, for example by redirecting funds from environmentally harmful programmes such as the promotion of e-mobility to where they actually have an active and practical benefit. If we fail to do so, if we do not have sufficient resources at our disposal to help local citizens, the EU risks completely dismantling it. Then it's no longer just Too little too late, but Too little and never.