Debate: Conclusions of the extraordinary European Council meeting of  April  - New MFF, own resources and Recovery plan
Date: WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2020
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

I would really like to thank you for that because, with that cooperation, we have already been able to deliver, over the last few weeks, more than 200 measures, some of the very important legislative proposals adopted by you, which really went in the direction of how to help people on the ground concretely to overcome this unprecedented crisis. Thanks to the heroic efforts of our health professionals and thanks to the discipline of our citizens, we are finally seeing that the terrible numbers of corona crisis victims are slowly going down. We all know that this was a very difficult period, but the biggest test is still ahead of us: how to recover from this crisis, how to relaunch and restart our economy, and how to get back to normal. This could indeed be, as Mr Weber described, the Schuman moment of our generation. Therefore, I very much appreciate this debate because, as Mr Silva Pereira said, we need to be ambitious and bold to meet this challenge, this test, of European solidarity and credibility. How do we want to achieve that? Just let me quickly recap some of the major features of the proposals we are currently working on. We want to base our response on a powerful future long—term budget, a multiannual framework with a strong recovery instrument which would dramatically boost the financial firepower of the EU. I would definitely call this an unprecedented ambition. So here I would beg to differ with Mr Verhofstadt that this is ‘business as usual’. I was personally involved in the negotiations on the last three financial perspectives and what we are proposing right now has never been done before. It’s very bold and very ambitious. I believe that, with your support, we can deliver on this challenge which is ahead of all of us. I would like to reassure you that we want to reinforce all the policies which work and which are, I would say, battle—tested. We would like to make sure that we will top up the cohesion funds and focus the top—up especially on those who have suffered the most during the crisis. We want to use and improve the work of InvestEU and of Horizon, which is so important for supporting our scientists. And we would never forget the very important social aspect of our work for the European Union. We need to tackle poverty, we need to make sure that the Just Transition Fund works efficiently, and of course we cannot forget about women, parents and all the issues related to gender balance, which will be so important for our recovery. On top of that, we are bringing to the table a new solvency instrument to prevent bankruptcies caused by this crisis, and we also want to develop a new health programme that would prepare us better for the future. So, once again, I repeat, this is definitely not ‘business as usual’. This is a very ambitious response to the current crisis. I would like also to respond to the calls of Mr Lamberts, Mr Eickhout and Mr Ertug by saying we definitely want to use this new financial firepower to bounce our economy forward. We want to make it greener and more sustainable. I think that this crisis has taught us the lesson that we have to be more resilient through strategic autonomy and technological sovereignty. These are the areas where we need to be much more active than before, and this is our goal. To all those colleagues who have been highlighting the importance of own resources, I would like to reassure you that we are very actively working with all options. Most of these have already been mentioned here in this debate. We are going to present proposals which we believe will be acceptable to all and which could be approved by your votes and by the Member States. It’s very clear that, if we have to deliver on this challenge, we can deliver only with your full involvement and with clear oversight and scrutiny from the European Parliament.  If you allow me, Mr President, before concluding, I will make just two quick remarks on issues which are not related to the main theme, but have been raised in this House. As they are so important, I just want briefly to react to them, these being the questions from Mr Olivier and Mr Omarjee concerning the German Constitutional Court’s recent ruling. Here I would like to say that, despite the fact that we are studying the ruling of the German Constitutional Court in great detail, I think our President has made it very clear. She clearly said that, when it comes to the primacy in Europe of EU law and the independence of the European Central Bank, these are basic principles which we are ready to safeguard and defend if necessary, even using the option of infringement proceedings. So we are clearly working on it.  To Ms Yoncheva, I would like to reassure her that we are working on the report on the rule of law, where we will study all the known issues, but also on how our governments have been using special powers during this difficult period and how to make sure that we will, as quickly as possible, bounce back to normally—functioning democratic systems. All this will be brought to your attention and to your table at the latest in September. Once again, Mr President, thank you very much to everyone for this debate, for the ideas, for the encouragement and for the ambition I have felt in this House.