Conclusions of the extraordinary European Council meeting of 23 April 2020 - New MFF, own resources and Recovery plan (debate)
Speaker: Manfred WEBER (Germany, Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) / Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern e.V.)
Date: 2020-05-13

  Manfred Weber,  on behalf of the PPE Group. – Mr President, normally we are used to immediately start in our political contributions with technical details and political battles. Today, I want to speak first about people, their hearts, their courage, their efforts, their fears, and probably also their pain: the nurse in Madrid who was infected while helping a patient, the doctor in Bergamo who had to decide about life and death in the past weeks, and probably the young researcher in Tübingen, who worked day and night trying to find a possible cure to stop this pandemic.
I mention these examples to show that the heroes of this crisis are not politicians, managers or media stars. The stars have been the millions of Europeans who helped, engaged and took care of all of us. Thank you very much, from the bottom of our heart, all of you. No words can ever be enough to thank you for your engagement.
Now we have to do our job as politicians. Now it is our turn. In the EPP Group, we strongly support the general architecture which is now on the table: to have an ambitious, future—orientated MFF – and we add a recovery plan, a recovery fund, which really delivers on the demands of today’s European Union. Speaking about the architecture of this new mechanism, for us, as the EPP, the key element is to fight for a democratic budget, a budget decided by the people represented here in this Chamber, a budget based on solidarity among people and nations in the European Union, a budget that is honest with the people and a budget that cares for the people.
‘We want to have our sovereignty back’ was one of the main messages in the Brexit campaign. I tell you that this successful message reflected on the problem that people don’t feel involved in the European decision—making process. And that’s why it is so important that it is not Brussels that decides about the recovery fund, a kind of external power deciding. No: my MEP decides about the future of the European Union and about the recovery programme.
It must be in the hands of those who are elected for this. No budget without democratic legitimacy. That is one of the principles in the European way of life. This promise was given by the European Commission and I would say that now is the time to deliver. To the Council I want to say that now is not the time for institutional battles in this field. I think it is the time to guarantee, also from a Council point of view, a democratic Europe as a principle for the future.
A second consideration for us, the EPP Group, is that people don’t care about procedure. They only care about concrete projects and concrete support. In this spirit of the past weeks, a spirit of solidarity among Europeans, we also have to focus on the ones who really needs our help the most, the most affected regions, and especially the young generation.
I want to put this at the centre of my second point, namely that we have already faced, in the last 12 years, a kind of lost generation in the European Union, where millions of young people – well—educated, well-prepared people – had no chance to really succeed in the labour market. And I want to underline that Europe cannot again allow us to have a lost generation facing the future of the European Union. That’s why the investments are needed. Europe has to give the young generation hope.
The third aspect I want to underline is to be honest regarding the MFF. We have to keep the promises that we gave to the voters last year. There is one aspect, which Ursula von der Leyen has already rightly underlined, that is about future investments – climate change, the question of stronger investments in research, the digital world, education, the fight against cancer or today against corona – and to do it together as common activities.
And we must not forget our regions and farmers. I want to underline this. We must be fair with everybody. Today cohesion and agriculture policy is one of the tools where we already show solidarity in today’s European Union. That’s why it must be properly financed as well.
As a final point, I want to underline that we have to take care of the preparation for future emergency situations we will face in the European Union. We cannot promise that we will be able to avoid another pandemic in the future. Nobody can do so. But we can make sure that Europe is much better prepared for the next pandemic or the next crisis. We need flexibility. We need own resources. We have to create tools for a quick and decisive response if there is an unexpected situation in front of us.
After the crisis, we want to see a united Europe where all parts of our Union will economically recover. After the crisis, we want to see a united Europe which invests in future projects and which creates an economic future for our young generation. And, after the crisis, we want to see at a global level a Europe that is the first out of the crisis.
That is what we want to achieve, and probably this is the Schuman moment of our generation, also having your words in mind. We have to be clear on this and we have to be motivated by the courage we saw from the nurses, from the doctors, and from all those who delivered in the last weeks. That is what we should use as an example. Let’s act now.