Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, cohesion policy is of utmost importance for the whole European Union. It is the main investment tool to help us eradicate social and territorial inequalities. Every European shall be safe, free and have the means necessary to pursue a fulfilling life. We evaluate cohesion policy with these goals in mind and in order to adapt it to the current economic and social situations. Cohesion policy is a long-term and strategic investment tool that helps us make the regions more resilient. Therefore, we need to address climate change. Our regions were not prepared for the catastrophes that came, and they are not prepared for the catastrophes that will come. Let us help them prepare. Let us help them to adapt to climate change, to prevent the next disasters from happening, and to help them save thousands of lives. Please let us introduce a climate adaptation fund. Every European shall be safe, free and have the means necessary to pursue a fulfilling life. In order to address assure this, we must negate the factual differences between cities and rural areas. Therefore, it is necessary to reintegrate the European agricultural fund for rural development under the roof of cohesion policy. This way, we can bring social, economic and rural development all together and enable citizens in rural areas to make the best out of their own home. Millions are already doing it today through LEADER, which is a community-led local development tool, and this is immensely successful. Let us learn from these regional heroes and let us include more of these bottom-up tools in cohesion policy. If we include civil society and individual citizens in the policymaking and decision process, we will see a democratisation of our whole society. This is the only way to really ensure that no one is left behind. Cities too should be able to address their respective needs in the most efficient way there is with direct access to funding and without interference from the national government. Let us dare more subsidiarity, ladies and gentlemen. More subsidiarity – and real subsidiarity – not just at national or regional level, but all the way down to cities, municipalities and individual citizens. This way we can ensure that every European shall be safe, free and have the means necessary to pursue a fulfilling life.

–Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, if we take a look back to the hard times when COVID hit us the first time, we remember probably two distinguished moments. One was when all cultural entities were closed, the other one was when schools were closed. I think those are the two most prominent and also the hardest hit structural entities that we see. The cultural sector makes up 4.4% of Europe’s GDP. Over 8.7 million people are employed in the cultural sector. Every child goes to school, thankfully, but still we have asked for 2% of the RF to be spent on culture and 10% in education. We had to follow up on this, and see that this has not been done across Europe – the problem there being that some Member States actually invest money in culture and education while others don’t. They have not followed Parliament’s proposal to do the rightful investments, and what we see now is underfunded cultural entities in several Member States, especially those where freedom of speech is threatened by other means. We are seeing a recovery of different speeds. We see Member States like Italy that have invested heavily in culture and others that have invested nothing and we know that this threatens the European diversity of culture. This has to be reversed, and therefore we are calling on the Commission to reuse the unused RF resources for culture and education to make sure that every European can enjoy diversity and can enjoy very well education.

Yes, thank you. I think it’s an excellent question but also leads to the question of what we do exactly at the convention. I believe the power of democracy lies in compromises, lies in the fact that we don’t have referenda where we just have yes or no. And the same thing is true also for this question as regards unanimity. Of course, I do see the point that smaller Member States need representation and that they need a certain amount of power through the use of unanimity. However, at a certain point it gets ad absurdum and we are at the point where Member States, and we have seen that multiple times, are trying to force their opinion upon everybody else as a minority, which is not what we want in a democracy and bundle up together decisions that have nothing to do with each other. So I think that we cannot continue with the prospect of unanimity, because it will not solve any problems, because every time your citizens say, for example, you say for your citizens, we want a stronger minimum wage. And then, I don’t know, maybe Malta says, no, this is okay for us, but we want fishing rights here and there, and therefore we block everything on the question of? This is unfair. So I think what we can come up with in the Convention is also a solution to that. So figure out what is the possible solution that gives the right to the smaller member states to be part of the discussion, but also that enables us to act. That is the strength that we need. Democracies can act, but we are just too slow because we are having too much unanimity.

Madam President, first of all, when I go to my constituency, yes, I agree. Not all of the citizens tell me we want to get rid of unanimity. Of course not. This is a highly technical question. The majority is just asking me: why is Europe not doing anything on this? Why don’t we solve the migration crisis? Why aren’t we helping people on the borders? Why aren’t we getting support for the low income regions? Why aren’t we getting help for everybody to have the same pension and the same minimal income? And then I have to explain to them – and maybe that’s also a job for my colleagues as well – that there are a lot of proposals on the table, but they’re just not being voted on because there’s the rule of unanimity and that we need to get rid of it in order to be a more concrete European Union. I think this has been the exercise that we did here. We asked citizens who were, some of them not at all involved in politics, to come here and make up their mind and propose ideas, what they think about the problems, where they see topics to be improved and everything. And then the outcome was, well, we need Treaty change. One last sentence about this; I will make it brief. Just because we have a convention doesn’t mean that everything that is proposed will come into law. I mean, the important thing is to bring people together and to talk about the society that we want to live in in the future. And that is what the Convention is there for. And if we stop this process from the start, then I think our society has no future. (The speaker agreed to take a blue-card intervention)

Madam President, thank you. Mr Castaldo, I have a question. You have mentioned that there are two possibilities to go forward with Europe. One, with a closer Union that will be in the geopolitical sphere, be stronger and have a voice, and the other one, which will be playing ball with the other bigger powers. However, I would like your position on these two possibilities on the internal matters – which one do you think will improve the life of the citizens in Europe the best?

Thank you very much, Madam Vice—President. And to you, Madam Vice—President, and to the other Vice—President in the front. The question is, you have mentioned the courage of the citizens during the Conference. Do you feel that this model is something for the future? Do you feel that this is something that we could take up also maybe in the convention that we are discussing now as a follow—up for the Conference on the Future of Europe?

Since you’ve mentioned me so clearly, I think a point of order is definitely due. I do not think that it’s right to call this honourable House, together with the colleagues from the national governments, together with the colleagues from the national parliaments, together with the Commission, together with 800 randomly—selected citizens, ‘a house of clowns’ or something like this. I think this is not respectful to the House. And I’m questioning whether you actually have respect for the people that you represent.

if unanimity was democratic, then probably we should also do it here. What or why do we have a different voting system? But my extra question is, you have said that there has been no democratic process. I mean, we have invited, for the first time ever, 800 citizens of the European Union. Have you talked to them? Have you discussed actually with them? Because I have the feeling with all the proposals that you have made and that you’ve listed, you have never had the discussion with those people because otherwise it would be quite different. Last part, there was a website with proposals where every citizen could propose something. None of the things that you have mentioned have been submitted to this website. Maybe, just maybe, you don’t have any democratic backing for your proposals and that is the fact why this has been not discussed at the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Madam President, We must become independent of Russian gas and, of course, diversify our imports. But we do not have to make ourselves immediately dependent on the next dictatorships. And that's what we do when we invest too much in infrastructure that shows that we still need fossil fuels in the future. Instead, we need to expand renewables. But for this we need interconnectors, and we need a European energy market, especially for the electricity sector. I think you have to name Ross and Reiter. In the Pyrenees, France is vehemently blocking access to the European energy market for the Iberian Peninsula. And why? But only to advance one's own failed nuclear policy. I think this is extremely un-European from a president who likes to sink his people's money into the nuclear reactors, but can't demand that the whole of Europe now block the expansion of renewables. Instead, the President of France, and above all the Commission, must work to ensure that France finally makes these interconnectors possible and that we can get a real European energy market and thus gain independence and, above all, support Ukraine in the war.

Madam President, Commissioner Ferreira, dear colleagues and most importantly, dear Europeans, currently we are facing two devastating crises: the climate crisis, but most importantly, of course, Russian war on European soil. These lead to great uncertainty, but not what is uncertain – that’s quite clear. We know what we want to do. We want to become independent from Russian fossil fuels by extending our energy efficiency and renewable energies like wind and solar. This will hurt Russia now and make Europe stronger in the long term. We know we want to help those who help refugees. Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and the whole European Union says refugees are welcome and we need to support those people. We know that we want to strengthen the EU’s unity through cohesion. Economic prosperity in all regions brings the European people together, and a united Europe will perceive any crisis. The uncertainty, though, is how we reach those goals. In this uncertainty, we need, on the one hand, strategic stoicism, on the other, localised expertise. The Commission needs to ensure that even under these time constraints and the Russian aggression, our strategic goals, and the means, will be kept, including the rule of law. Most importantly, though, the Commission must ensure that the partnership principle is valued and that local expertise is included. Partnership agreements that do not include those means must be rejected, even if we are facing time constraints. The solution to this less time is more efficient spending of money through local experts. LEADER has shown us that it can be spent very wisely and we should use CLLD and LEADER approaches in the partnership agreements. Lastly, let’s be honest, we also have to criticise ourselves (I’ll be finished in a second) that we have taken too long to finish this. It was a problem from the Member States also, to not have taken the time accordingly, but that should not end up hurting the regions, and we must ensure that this comes out in the end and that they get a little bit more time in the end to use the money accordingly.

Mr President, the culture and creative sector is still in the biggest crisis in its existence. Thousands of European artists, creators and performers have lost their income. Those people across Europe have used up all their savings, they have sold their instruments and tools and they still are living from day to day without clarity what comes tomorrow, or if they can put food on the table for their families. And yet the political response throughout Europe’s Member States has been inadequate to deal with this tremendous crisis that culture currently faces. The freedom of expression, the freedom of the arts, the freedom of speech, the freedom of culture is at stake. We can have very nice laws, like Article 13 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, that grant the freedom of arts and the expressions. But when artists, performers, authors, creatives are struggling to survive, those rules mean nothing. And yes, we do have governments in the EU that use the pandemic to defund the sector, to destroy the opposition and to silence their critics. When this is happening in the Union, the EU must act to protect artists, performers and the whole sector. The EU must become the guardian of culture, of freedom. In this light, we, the European Parliament, have worked collectively to present this report that draws the attention to the horrific situation of the cultural and creative sectors and industries CCS, as well as propose improvements. I am thankful for the cooperation that we have with the rapporteur, Ms Semedo, as well as the other colleagues and, of course, the CCFT. This cooperation shows that we have crossed paths and shared an understanding of the risks that we are facing when culture is under distress. However, I believe we also need to go further and we need to go beyond what the treaty offers the EU to do. If we want the EU to be the guardian of culture, we need to extend the competences and weave a safety net that offers social security, health care and pensions to all creatives in the EU. We need to see more investments from the Member States like the two per cent that we propose from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) money, and we need to get the possibility to support artists and performers with funding, even if they are in a position in their country. Only then, we will see a recovery from the situation, and only then, culture will truly be free again.

Mr President, I want to start with the words of the Council itself. To quote the Treaty, it says ‘determined to lay the foundation of an ever closer Union among the peoples of Europe, resolved to ensure the economic and social progress of their countries by common action to eliminate the barriers that divide Europe.’ Those barriers are still here in the form of useless regulation, unnecessary bureaucratic complication and common public frustration. The European Cross—Border Mechanism solves these issues. It brings peoples across Europe together and raises economic prosperity. Regions that now are peripheric in regard to their Member States can become a central part of Europe with enhanced cooperation, with new jobs, with prosperity and an improvement of livelihood. For three years already, 15 Member States have been blocking the ECBM. For what? It is because they think that the slightest reduction of their own competences is too much. Because national politicians are afraid that they might lose power. The Council is not acting in the interest of the European people. The ECBM is justified by the treaty to which the Member States have committed. The ECBM is just because it is in line with the Commission’s mandate and does not infringe competences. The ECBM is needed because it improves the situation for border regions and betters the lives of the people in those regions. The ECBM is appropriate because the benefit overwhelms the loss of competences. When will the Council adopt a position and start negotiation with us? When will you finally take the treaty seriously and start working for the European people? I believe I speak for all my colleagues in the Committee on Regional Development when I say that all our doors are open for you and for talks so that we can ease concerns, build trust and bring the European Cross-Border Mechanism to a conclusion, because we are ready to work for the European people.