What Luděk spoke about.

Mr President, let me start with the budget, turning to Mr Costa. It seems that we have two groups of countries and two narratives. The first group wants to send less national money into the EU budget, and the second group wants to get more money from the EU budget to their national budget. Surprisingly, I am afraid that compromise is possible – but this would be a bad compromise, because securing

Madam President, the Commission proposal for the creation of the 28th regime is one of the most visible, important and possibly impactful proposals that we have got on the table in this term. It would make the single market much stronger and it will provide start-ups and scale-ups with a better framework on how to keep their activity within the EU, because this is a very substantial problem. We ha

Madam President, let me just react on three points on the Council agenda. First of all, on Russian aggression. Ukraine is showing strength on the battlefield every day, but it would not be possible without continuation of our economic, political and military support. We must keep going, not only because it's the right thing, but, as it was said by our chairman, our relationship with Ukraine is not

Mr President, economic dependency is more expensive than ever and more risky than ever. It does not matter if we are talking about goods, energies, services or materials and energies. The political direction is clear: we need to reduce it. It is the same as the economic necessity. Let me just say two comments. First, we should recognise that each sector is different. In some, we can reduce the dem

Madam President, this debate confirms that the majority of the House understood that Draghi and Letta were right: the single market is the asset that can assure the stability and prosperity of the European Union. I am pleased to see the 'One Europe, One Market' proposal from the Commission as a very comprehensive plan on how to reach substantial improvement – improvement that we really badly need.

Madam President, thank you very much, and thank you, Kira. First of all, I am very encouraged by the clear support and understanding of the importance of this work by the majority of speakers here today. Let me also join others in thanking very much the rapporteurs, the shadow rapporteurs. We should not forget that without the strong engagement of the Polish Presidency, it would be very difficult

Madam President, the CMDI work that we will conclude tomorrow started in 2023 and it represents an important step in improving the banking architecture of the EU. But let me go at the beginning a little bit more farther in the history. The banking union itself remains unfinished more than 10 years after it was launched. Some important parts were introduced quickly, but the overall framework is sti

Mr President, on 12 March, tomorrow, the Czech Republic will mark the 27th anniversary of joining NATO. This was a huge step for the Czech Republic on the way to democratic Europe. Unfortunately, many Europeans have understood NATO membership as an umbrella under which someone else looks after our security and defence. This was a big mistake. The big mistake that has got us into the current, very

Mr President, President, dear colleagues, the start of the year unfortunately reminds me more of Hollywood movies than the world we want to live in. It doesn't mean that the challenges for us – both external and internal – are different. External challenges – I mean especially Ukraine – are even more pressing because, unfortunately, the rhetoric of the White House very often is very close to somet

Mr President, the US administration view on the situation of Europe and its future should not lead to our anger. It should lead to our reflection and action. Obviously, the Council is the right way to start with that. So let me just give three suggestions. First of all, Russian money should be what finances Ukraine. It's economically and morally right. So I call on the Council to find the agreemen

Madam President, let me start by reacting to what was said here. I firmly believe that simplification and modernisation are important topics, but building the single market is the way to make Europe stable and prosperous. We should not forget that in doing so, we have to sacrifice 27 different treatments of different goods and services, create one set of rules and give up those that are created by

Madam President, President von der Leyen, your Commission is in office only for half a year, so I guess your speech that was rather analysing the situation and showing the way forward was the proper one, but now time is coming when not speeches, but action will decide if we succeed in the battles that you properly describe. In months to come here in the House, we will have to show who has courage

Mr President, Donald Trump has pushed the US trade policy almost 100 years back. Indeed, in 40s the US tariffs fall to 10 % and then continue declining to to pre-Trump 2 to 3 %. Now they are heading steeply, steeply up. On top of that we have that incredible unpredictability. The first who will suffer will be US citizens, US households who will pay more for the goods and have lower availability of

Madam President, let me start by congratulating our Bulgarian colleagues, like my friend, Dolors. I really envy them, that they have the courage to take the right decision. I'm saying that as a Czech – unfortunately, my country hasn't had this courage so far. But talking about our debate, I would say that this is a little bit of a half‑empty glass situation. I will talk about three issues. Only in

Mr President, selling passports for cash is just wrong. It is wrong from so many angles. It is wrong ethically, it was said clearly that passports are not candy or a telephone, and it undermines the value of citizenship. It hurts EU citizens because very often it's associated with increase of real estate prices created by this bubble of of gold-passport holders. It undermines the security and not

Mr President, dear colleagues, US tariff policy is just wrong – not only for all the world, but also for US firms and businesses. It will be the people and firms of the US who will pay most of the hundreds of billions in tariffs if they are actually collected. But we are not here to set the US policy. We are rightly debating our response. And here I am very glad that I can endorse the plan of the

First, this is not exactly what I was talking about. But it's absolutely obvious: either we defend ourselves together, or we don't defend ourselves. What I'm talking about are the projects that will substantially increase our ability to defend, and make it much more effective, and save money – for example, anti-missile defence, drone defence, electronic defence, and so on. It would be – and I gues

Madam President, the world has changed, not to better, in the last few years, but mostly in the last few weeks. It's clear what we Europeans have to do: the exact opposite to what Moscow, Beijing, but also Donald Trump, is dreaming about. We must get united and we must get much, much, much stronger. From that point of view, the summit was a good start. But not everything is about money. We need a

I just think the first: negotiate with EU to try to reduce our harm. The second: promote the single market that will make our economy stronger. And the third: develop the trade relationship with other countries through trade agreements. This is a way which I would propose.

Madam President, high unjustified tariffs don't make economies stronger. They don't make economies more competitive. It doesn't solve the fiscal problem. This was proved many, many times, but obviously Donald Trump is right, he can take this way if he wants. We as Europeans must stay united and negotiate in our interest, also to protect multilateralism. At the same time, we should clearly understa

Madam President, dear colleagues, I believe that focusing the first Council under new leadership on external actions is a good decision. Continuing war in Ukraine, situation in the Middle East, but also hybrid wars going on all around us, as we heard in the morning session, are clearly showing the importance of that. Secondly, given the uncertainty about the future course of US policy, it is impor

Madam President, we are almost at the end of the debate, so let me just say two remarks. The first: in the debate, I guess we learned how people interpret the democracy, how they interpret the elections and how they think about the future of our common Europe. And this was very sad. It shows how much the responsibility is lacking on parts of the politics in the 21st century. And the second comment

Mr President, as was said by the Commissioner at the beginning, the data are quite clear that, with the substantial contribution of the existing tax regime across the world, the super rich are just getting richer. It seems to me that it's really not good for society, there is no doubt about it. But I firmly believe it's also not good for the economy, at least in this extent. But at the same time,

Mr President, the competitiveness is economic topic of the day – by far the most important. We need to finally move from nice slogans to real action that will deliver. Letta report, Draghi report provide a good guidance how to go. But at the same time, we should not forget that there are pending proposals that will deliver improvement in our economy, like digital taxation proposal ViDA, and it's f

Madam President, I guess this is an excellent paper. Not everyone obviously shares everything, but I guess the sense of urgency from this report is very clear. It includes not only great economics, but also some important takes. Let me borrow one sentence: procrastination has only produced slow growth and it has certainly achieved no more consensus. This is where we are. This is the message that s