Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Many thanks to the rapporteur and also to the Commissioner. I would like to use the short time given to me to point out an important point in my view. This is the fact that the Brexit Adjustment Reserve is intended to help a narrow group of people, namely the fishing establishments that are particularly affected, in a very limited period of time. Particularly against this background, it is, in my view, problematic for the Commission to set the funding rate of the EMFAF or the EMFF for competition reasons, so that in individual cases the full envisaged amount of the reserve cannot be used for the adjustment to Brexit. This is a problem, as is the time frame. We have a lot of supply chain issues right now. Larger projects in particular cannot be initiated. Here, too, an adjustment should be considered. Especially against the background of the extremely high fuel prices, we need maximum flexibility to save our operations. I ask the Commission to reconsider this and wish those who are fighting for it in the Commission every success.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, The European Union must be more than a money-distribution machine. That is why it is our task here in Parliament to argue for European added value, and our committee chairman has said a lot about it, and we have succeeded. I would like to thank all those who fought for it: EU4Health, Horizon In particular, rescEU and Erasmus+ were mentioned. And the other side of this medal is control, because not only the added value is important, but also the commitment. We are in the area Heading 7, for example. European Court of Auditors to strengthen, including the European Public Prosecutor. This is the other side of the coin, which is very, very important. But this applies to all institutions, including us. We also have a special task here, and we can confidently say this: This must also be reflected in the budget. All in all, it has become clear that the other institutions also need a strong parliament and obviously want it and also challenge us. We will be able to fulfil this wish again next year in the next negotiations as a self-confident Parliament.

Madam President, a lot of wise words have already been spoken during this debate so I would like to seize the opportunity and draw your attention to some examples which might bring us to more general points. These are, for us as budgetary politicians, especially clarity and control. We can see that significant funds from financing programmes are transferred, for example, to decentralised agencies. I can give you two examples. The EU4Health programme, which we fought for quite strongly in this Parliament, goes to the Organisation for Economic Co—operation and Development (OECD) Agency and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). I support these fields of policy because they are very important. The pandemic has shown this very clearly. Another example is border management and the visa instrument, money transferred to Europol. I strongly support this strengthening of Europol, but the way it is done contradicts the need for clarity that we, as parliamentarians, should fight for. The real questions that we should ask ourselves are: is it necessary not only to understand the movements, but the underlying reasons, and are agencies taking over tasks that would otherwise have been financed under the programme? It is important to have control as well. In the fields of other sections, we talk about supporting the European Court of Auditors, and let me say that, if we, as a parliament, have literally no control over NextGenerationEU and the vast amounts that go along with this programme, we should at least strengthen the European Court of Auditors. Bearing this in mind, I think we should agree that we, as a parliament, should talk more about clarity and more about control. We will strengthen the whole Parliament.