Debate: Conclusions of the extraordinary European Council meeting of - July
Date: THURSDAY, 23 JULY 2020
Speaker: Manfred Weber
Political group: PPE
Country: Austria
Language: EN

Nowhere else in the world except for these 27 countries is giving such a strong and united response to the COVID-19 crisis. That’s why I want to thank Charles Michel, Ursula von der Leyen, Angela Merkel and our president for the negotiations. There were a lot of sleepless nights, but finally a good outcome was reached. You did a great job in holding Europe together, and the EPP Group supports the spirit of solidarity and togetherness. I’m happy about the agreement – no doubt about that – but I’m not happy about the deal. While we welcome the outcome of the Council meeting, we are living in a parliamentary democracy, and that means that the outcome is now arriving here in the European Parliament. The rule all over Europe is that the output after a parliamentary consultation will never be the same as the input from the Council side. That is now ahead of us. This means we must not delay things, because I hear these arguments now around the corridors. The first MFF proposal – Ursula von der Leyen referred to this – was on the table of the Council in 2018, so don’t tell us about delaying things, there was a lot of time to do the job. That’s why what we are doing now is the normal consent procedure based on the Lisbon Treaty. And yes, there are a lot of points where we have to criticise and, Ursula, we are for the moment not ready to swallow the bitter pill you referred to, namely the MFF. On the MFF, we think that it doesn’t provide proper answers to the challenges of the next seven years. It has to be more future-orientated, and I, as an elected Member of Parliament, also refer again to the promises I made to my voters. The EPP promised, for example, a strong and effective coastal and border guard, and now there is not enough money to do this. The EPP promised that Europe would tackle the big diseases such as cancer together, and now there are dramatic cuts in the health budget in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is unbelievable. The EPP promised a strong boost for European innovation once the European Council formulated the 3% target to finance innovation. We are losing ground to China and Asia on innovation, we are losing our future and now there are cuts to Horizon Europe. The EPP promised a strong Europe in the world, and now defence, Africa, neighbourhood are being cut. That is the first point we have to talk about. The second point is Europe is not a cash machine for national budgets. The proposal on the table brings us to the renationalisation of European money and of the European budget. 90 % of the EUR 750 billion in the Next Generation EU fund will go directly to the Member States’ budgets. So far, nobody knows exactly what this money will be spent on. Each leader came back home in the last days with a nice envelope of money, but will there really be a European spirit when we now spend the money? My fear is that this will be spent here and there purely on national favourites. The French Finance Minister said already that they will use it for social projects, in other countries they will build motorways, and in other countries they will lower their taxes to create growth. That is the reality when we see the debate Europe—wide. In a couple of months, we will sit here again together in the European Parliament and complain that the citizens don’t understand what the purpose of European money is or what the idea of European money is; we will complain that the people don’t see the added value of Europe. That is the drama we will face if, again, we don’t use this money for clear European projects like our predecessors did, for example, with Airbus. That’s why we think that the Member States, the Council, should have agreed on, for example, a real 5G transnational network, on an EU battery project, and on a plan for EU hydrogen where each Member State is using their own envelope for these investments. Citizens can now count on the European Parliament not to give up on this idea. We want to have a say on what the EU money will be spent on and we will be the watchdog on the European added value. I ask President Michel and President von der Leyen to formally propose a list of five, six or seven EU industrial innovation projects that each and every Member State would commit to contributing to finance through the Recovery Fund resources they will receive in the next upcoming months and years. Thirdly, we have to speak about rule of law again. The first time we link European money to a binding rule of law mechanism is a positive step, but when I see today the statements of our leaders, then I’m a little bit confused. Macron says that money will be only spent while respecting rule of law and others say there is no link. That’s why, Ursula, we have to be clear on this. We need a roadmap, we need a clear plan for implementing the principle: no money without respecting the European rules and the European mechanisms. And then, we are ready, I want to thank again for the outcome. After the European Council, we have to work hard now for a good and quick solution. Let’s use now the time ahead of us to find a solution and to improve the deal. We are ready to do so.