Debate: budgetary procedure: joint text
Date: TUESDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2021
Speaker: Johannes Hahn
Language: EN

I am pleased that we can send the reassuring message to the citizens of Europe that the European Union’s budget will allow the Union indeed to mobilise significant funds for a continued EU response to the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences. It was already explained by Johan Van Overtveldt that it is not only the core MFF, but also NextGenerationEU, where the size is even bigger than the core MFF at least for next year. So this enables us to kick-start a sustainable recovery and to protect and create jobs. It will trigger further investments into a greener, more digital, more resilient Europe, while protecting indeed the most vulnerable in its neighbourhood and around the world.  The initial positions were quite far apart when we started the negotiations. Therefore, it’s not surprising that it was not easy to reconcile them but I appreciate that all parties acted responsibly and made the necessary concessions in order to have finally indeed a solid agreement on time. Therefore, I would like to thank the European Parliament, especially the Committee on Budgets and all the specialised committees, for the intensive work on the Commission’s proposal for the draft budget 2022, and on behalf of the Commission in particular, I would like to thank the Chair, Johan Van Overtveldt, and both rapporteurs, Karlo Ressler and Damian Boeselager, for their cooperation and willingness to keep the general interests of the European Union and its citizens as the ultimate objective. But I would also like to include in this your teams, but also the other colleagues of the committee, because I could witness that some discussions took some time to arrive finally at a good result. And in this vein, I also would like to thank again the Slovenian Presidency, in particular Irena Drmaž for her constructive approach during these negotiations. Please convey again my thanks to her.  These negotiations were not always in a very perfect environment on the Council side, if I may say it in that respect, but finally, we could get an agreement. And again, all this has shown that the institutions are finally able to strike a compromise which is clearly, so to say, the best of European culture to arrive finally at an agreement, and it is always for the benefit of the Union and its citizens. Finally, yet importantly, let me also use this opportunity to thank my colleagues in the Commission’s Directorate-General for Budgets for the continuous work on the file during the last months. The work on the annual budget, for instance for 2023, has actually already started so this is not something which starts somewhere in summer, but on the staff side it starts actually towards the end of the year before the year of the new budget. This is why I really would like to thank them. May I also say that contrary to what some may believe, it was also thanks to the Commission’s honest-broker position that we have this really good compromise, and I am grateful to hear that this is now also recognised by you.  A few details on the agreement - not everything which is in my briefing in order not to waste too much time, but I think it’s again important to highlight that the overall level of commitment appropriations in 2022 is set at EUR 169.5 billion and this is an increase of 1.6% compared to 2021. The overall level of payment appropriations in the 2022 budget is set at EUR 170.6 billion. This is an increase of 1.5% compared to 2021, and it’s for the second time in a row that we have budgetised more payment appropriations than commitment appropriations, which again is a signal that the whole recovery is picking up and we receive and we expect more payment appropriations in the days and months to come.  Maybe a few comments, because also following the previous point on the agenda, under heading 4, additional amounts were agreed for the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund. EUR 20 million will finance particularly resettlement of Afghan refugees, and also the Integrated Border Management Fund was increased by EUR 25 million to finance the measures at the border with Belarus.  Heading 6 was of course the most sensitive and difficult one, given all the new emergencies and continued needs in the partner countries. It’s particularly important that a significant increase, EUR 190 million, was agreed for the NDICI Global Europe, mainly to fight the coronavirus pandemic globally, but also to support the eastern and southern neighbourhood in Central Asia. I fully agree with Johan that we have to see the health dimension, and I think Karlo also mentioned it, in a broader context in order really to extinguish this pandemic. And therefore also humanitarian aid has been increased substantially by EUR 211 million. This will also enable the Union to show more solidarity with the Member States suffering from natural disasters in 2021, as this increase of humanitarian aid will free resources under the solidarity and the emergency aid reserve.  Finally, there was a package and there is a package of 56 pilot projects and preparatory actions of the European Parliament for a total amount of almost EUR 90 million in commitment appropriations. I think they are very interesting, valuable projects, and I’m keen to see how they are implemented and what are the effects.  Finally, I am convinced that this overall budget enables us to deliver on our citizens’ expectations, indeed to support again the recovery from the pandemic, but again, it’s not only to support the recovery, but to make Europe more resilient, more competitive, more ready to weather future potential crises, but also to become more competitive on a global scale. I think with this we have prepared the ground, and I think we can be proud together about the achievements.