Debate: Commission Work Programme
Date: TUESDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2023
Speaker: Siegfried Mureşan
Political group: PPE
Country: Germany
Language: EN

Of course, the context today in Europe is uncertain. In addition to the one war that we have been facing in Ukraine for more than one and a half years now, we saw the terrorist attacks of Hamas against Israel that have to unite us, that have to be condemned with all toughness, and which for sure will require us to do more in the area of security, defence, migration. We will have to do more than planned. We will have to do it earlier, and we will have to do it for a longer period of time. Inflation, energy crisis, the situation in Armenia, the migration challenge and of course the food tensions; our agenda remains busy. Nevertheless, I believe that the approach that you have presented now to focus on delivering, on providing concrete solutions which work in reality to the people of Europe, is correct – not to come up with new initiatives which we cannot conclude, which we cannot solve before the European elections, but to deliver on what we have promised. In that sense, we count on the Commission respecting the democratic calendar. We are looking forward to working with you over the course of the first four months of next year before the European elections, focusing on the top priorities and on making sure that we can still conclude and we can still deliver on some files. What do we expect as the EPP Group? Firstly, I would like to welcome the approach that you have put forward on reducing bureaucracy, reducing red tape, supporting small and medium-sized enterprises and supporting competitiveness only through strengthening our economy, making it more competitive, research-oriented, more innovative can we secure the high social standards that we have here in Europe. So this competitiveness agenda is not something abstract, but it is something that profoundly benefits enterprises and people in Europe. We have to work together on this. We have to make sure that whenever the Commission puts legislation forward, it does not negatively affect the competitiveness of our economy. We should implement what we have all together agreed in the Conference on the Future of Europe: the competitiveness check – the European Commission should please control that whenever it wants to put legislation forward it does not negatively affect competitiveness. Likewise, we also expect the Draghi report on competitiveness to be concluded before June 2024. And we expect the appointment of an SME envoy to take place. This SME envoy should be equipped with proper staff, with proper competences, responsibilities, and powers to also safeguard for good SME policy. For our group, of course, trade policy is important. Only an economy that is open, that trades with other parts of the world, is a strong economy. Please make progress and bring towards the ratification of Parliament the agreement with Chile, already finalised, with Australia, which good progress is being made on, and we need to make progress on Mexico as well. Last point, of course, Executive Vice-President, one of the key tools that the European Union has to deliver on its agenda is the budget. Please work with us to put pressure on the Presidency of the Council, and especially on the European Council President, to deliver this revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework, which would allow us to better protect our borders, to support refugees when they come to tackle the migration crisis, to do more on security, defence and to help Ukraine in a predictable manner, and from our side also the action plan on cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is bullying. This needs to be addressed as well. Thank you very much and we are looking forward to working with the Commission for the first part of next year.