Speeches

Mr President, last year we made a big mistake. We allowed Russia to squeeze our gas market. Most likely, the mistake was a consequence of naivety vis-à-vis Putin’s Russia, but also the belief of the Member States that they have the right to choose their energy mix allows a lack of cooperation and almost no coordination. We paid a high price and European risk management failed because we didn’t even interpret the data well at the end of last year. Today, we are facing a much larger problem. Putin’s war in Ukraine is killing thousands of innocent people, and we must do everything to stop it. At the same time, as a consequence, we are facing the problem we are talking about today as we are facing the energy price crisis. I am quite glad that the Commission has presented its communication today. I guess it’s a good one, but we must get it from paper to reality. I am also sad that some people, including the top politicians from some Member States, instead of speeding up the necessary measures, are scaring people. I guess this is not the right way. I believe we can, and we will, manage this crisis and, after all, the EU will get stronger, with a better energy union. We will become safer and we will secure affordable energy. But we must act. We must act now and together.

Madam President, the Commission President rightly said that this conflict was about democracy, about values and about freedom. And she’s right. But also in such a conflict, diplomacy plays a very important role. It seems to me that it was the rather clear position of NATO, the first stance of US diplomacy and efforts of some European politicians that turned the situation to the better. EU foreign policy didn’t play a sufficient role. I guess this is another wake up call for us. We need such a foreign policy that would work and that would be recognised. European countries also should invest more in the military. We cannot afford to be again the free rider of NATO. Also, we must be much better prepared for conflicts with countries that are an important supplier of energy, like Russia. Not ex—post evaluation, but ex—ante assessment of the risk and sufficient guard, how to protect our people and how to protect our economy. We shouldn’t fool ourselves. Despite easing the pressure, Russia is still sponsoring war in East Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians are suffering, and we have troubles to find the right way to help them and also protect our interest. At the same time, I believe that the politics of Mr Putin are getting more aggressive and less predictable. We, again, should not be naive. Suffering by his country wouldn’t change his mind, because it doesn’t affect his well—being. Only very bold sanctions can have an impact. So the next time, we must be much more better prepared than this time.

Mr President, energy union, in my view, is one of the most important and functional policies of the European Union. We are step by step introducing efficient rules for market functioning and reducing the threat linked to energy imports. But we must look into the future. So what would be on my agenda? First of all, we must keep developing and enforcing the rules promoting market efficiency, for everyone, everywhere. Secondly, natural gas will play a very important role in the future. To reduce the risk of the market volatility that we have seen just weeks ago, we must develop better storage and especially better management of this storage. So we need better rules for that. A better network for transition of electricity is important and necessary for better use of renewable sources of energy. As we know, some renewable energy sources are the cheapest sources of electricity for the time being. That is how the investment and energy union can contribute to more extensive use of these resources and, at the same time, decarbonisation and also lower prices for energy for households and firms within the EU. I hope the energy union will deliver all these goals.

Mr President, this agreement shows the ability of more than 130 countries to agree. Having signatures below such a complicated technical agreement in a politically sensitive area shows that we can agree, and now I guess without any delay we should implement. This agreement doesn’t mean that we solved most of the tax issues in the European Union. I can name a huge tax gap, especially in the VAT area; high compliance costs especially for our SMEs; complication for firms that want to be active in the European single market. This is the list of our troubles. I wonder, if 130 countries can agree under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) framework – and now I am turning to you, Mr Logar – why can 27 countries not agree under the EU framework and solve at least some of the very important tax problems within our Union. Thank you very much. I hope we will also move forward.

Madam President, I was listening carefully to the Council and Commission statements on the programme and they have my endorsement, but let me mention three issues that deserve attention. They are from the area of the economy. First, I appreciate the long and competent statement of the Commission President on energy, and we know what are the causes. Despite of the fact that the current crisis, almost crisis, is caused by mostly external factors, I guess we should pay more attention to the ongoing transformation from a fossil-based fuel energy economy to more clean and sustainable. It’s obvious that natural gas will play a role and we should reflect it, in my opinion, we should better coordinate the capacities and reserves across the EU to be sure that we are more resistant and, if necessary, we should finance an increase of those capacities. Second, on electricity. Electricity does not respect borders. It respects the rule of physics. That’s why we need more coordination not just at the level of Member States, but of the regions to make sure that we have sufficient capacities to provide the supply and also to be ready for the commissioning of resources. Second, I hope that the Council will clearly mandate the Commission to go on with implementation of the far-reaching OECD tax agreement. This is a must and this is in our favour. Last, but not least, in Glasgow I guess we should not only present our goals, but we should make sure that others will join and others will take their fair share of effort to protect our planet.

Madam President, just four quick points. As rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, let me express great appreciation of the work of the rapporteurs. Thanks for taking all points on board, but let me just add three more, focused rather into the future, that are not reflected. First of all, we should pay attention to proper financing of the European Supervisory Authority. As they are getting more assignments they must be properly staffed and be ready to fulfil the goals. Second, I guess there is a general understanding that pilot projects represent a very good way how to improve the functionality of the European Union. I would just call for more transparency and possible flexibility on the side of the Commission to better utilise this tool. Last but not least, in the budget we are often dealing with the millions while we are losing billions. I am talking about tax evasion, tax avoidance, that is the problem across the EU. We will get great support from the OECD agreement, but we should do also our homework and we can do much more to protect the money of the Member States and the European Union.

Madam President, it seems to me that journalists are doing a much better job than the tax authorities or politicians. That’s why we will probably have more such scandals. But it’s also fair to say that we are making progress. One of the most important things that was not mentioned by the Commissioner is that these days tax authorities have access to data – not only to EU data, but also to global data due to OECD standards. But, unfortunately, lessons learned on the functioning of anti-money-laundering systems in Europe tell us that not only are we not implementing agreed directives properly, but that we are also not using the data sufficiently. This is bad news. Being from Czechia, I cannot help but take some lessons from the case of our prime minister. If you look at this kind of structure, one can get a reasonable suspicion that such a complicated expensive legal structure must serve some purpose. So one could argue that behind such structures, there is very often a clear purpose, such as a reduction of taxes through tax avoidance or tax evasion, or money laundering. That’s why we must fight this practice. Last but not least, let me mention another issue. Both the Council and the European Parliament voted against banning EU subsidies to large companies. This is very, very unfortunate. As a consequence, some people could argue that Mr Babiš’ château was partly financed through the money of European taxpayers, and this is quite unfortunate.

Madam President, at the end let me make my few remarks. First of all, I guess we should not forget that the energy market is a market. It is heavily regulated but still it is a market, and as a result of that we can see that the demand for electricity has increased unexpectedly but the supply is not reacting appropriately and winter is approaching. That is why the prices are very, very high. According to market data, they should drop down later on, but it does not mean that the situation is not very, very serious. What can we do in the short run, before we increase our supply capacities? First of all, I guess we should fully use our capacities on the gas market, especially in the terms of storage. If they are not sufficient, we should increase them. Second, we should improve the capacity assessment on the electricity market and especially pay attention to the situation when we are decommissioning the resources, to be ready to replace them. Last but not least, we can consider if the ETS market should be added to with some kind of price stabilising mechanism to avoid excessive fluctuation.

Madam President, I guess our colleague has made a very good report about quite a bad situation. Why do I think the situation is bad? I can use just one example: to effectively use the data, we should have high—quality data. The quality of data depends also on the implementation of the Anti—Money Laundering (AML) Directives, and we know how poorly Europe does in the area of the AML Directives. In the current situation, when the Member States have refused the Commission initiative that would tackle the problem of tax evasion and tax avoidance via a definitive VAT regime, Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) or other measures, administrative cooperation is one of the most efficient ways to tackle cross—border, intra—EU tax fraud. Unfortunately, this report says that the opportunity given by this directive is by far not used enough. We need improvement in the quality of data, as well as improvement in how we use the data. We have now a lot of proposals by the Commission on the table in the area of taxation, and I guess these are good proposals, but they will not be sufficient unless we will see changes to the Member States’ tax administrations’ approach in dealing with tax evasion, and recognise the importance of cross—border cooperation. We are not there. So unless there is a substantial change, the proposals will not deliver the expected improvement. These days, the governments need every cent to help the budget, which is hurt by the pandemic. That is now one of the available options to improve the situation, and it’s sad to see that we are not using that effectively.

Madam President, I guess we can be very proud of the things we have done last year. I just hope we saved more lives, reduced the suffering and saved some costs. But now we must face the future, and here I must say that I share and agree with the agenda, the programme presented by you, Madam President, commented on by Manfred Weber and the others. And unlike a lot of people in this House, I believe we can deliver on this programme – if we want. Let me share some points that were discussed, and I haven’t heard a lot of reaction in discussion. First, on microchips. Here, I guess time is money, and we must find a way to help our researchers, investors and firms to increase our sovereignty and support our economy. The example to follow is not just Galileo; it’s also the Battery Alliance, that I guess is doing very well. Second, I was very pleased to hear that human rights are not for sale, as you said – at no cost. I guess yesterday was too late to make it more real. I guess to start with a ban on certain exports is the first step, but just the first step, and I guess we must deliver on that finally. Last but not least, let me refer to Next Generation EU and RRF. I guess this was a very right decision at the right time. Let me just remind the Commission and Council that there should be no space for corruption, conflicts of interests and wrongdoing. But we must make sure that money will deliver: that’s the key to turning this brave decision into success.

Madam President, good evening first of all. I guess almost everything was said, so just a few remarks. So first of all let me thank the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs for their cooperation and willingness to find the compromise. Let me also suggest that the involvement of experts in our work helped us to build bridges and find the agreement. And also let me appreciate the great work of our negotiating team. This is important product of the European Parliament. And if it will be approved tomorrow, I guess this will help us to set a position on a very important matter that will be, as we’ve heard, very soon on the agenda of the Commission. I believe that we need a change of our macroeconomic and fiscal framework. And I believe this report can help us to succeed in this effort. This report is not directly linked to the COVID crisis, as we have seen that even the current framework provides sufficient flexibility to deal even with such unusual circumstances, and tragic. However, it has been apparent that the current rules are too complex and are suboptimal due to reliance on unobservable variables. And so that’s why we need to review the framework rather soon, ideally before the escape clause is deactivated. In proposing new frameworks, we should reflect the lessons we learned from the past: make the framework much more transparent, more simple, and make sure that Member States better comply with the agreed rules. An essential part of this effort is to ensure, in short, that the variable that will be targeted will be under full control of the governments. Unfortunately, this is not the case for now, and that’s why we really need to work on the better framework. The framework also must allow Member State to execute strong anti-cyclical policy in case of need, where expansionary budget policy, in bad times, will obviously be balanced by increased savings in the good times. Also, creating fiscal buffers for bad situations or crises must be part of the responsible policy tool. I am pleased to see that we found strong support to base our recommendation on the proposal of the European Fiscal Board, which sets growth of expenditures as a key variable to reach the ultimate goal that is debt sustainability. I believe that this framework will be a significant improvement compared to the current situation, and it will contribute to the sustainability and stability of the EU economy, which can easily be harmed by irresponsible and unsustainable fiscal policy of the Member States. Thank you very much and I hope you support the report.

Madam President, I still remember the dark time of communist injustice in my country. I still remember the brave people that were fighting for more justice and freedom for everyone and for a better future. It is sad and shocking to see that, just a few decades later, one of them, Viktor Orbán, is pursuing a policy that is nearly a copy and paste of the politics of that time, a policy that will hardly make a better life for thousands of Hungarians. So that’s why I am really pleased to see that we will stay behind freedom and behind European values, and will react strongly and clearly to such a development. Secondly, let me say that I am glad to hear that within the Council they are going back to economic topics on the agenda. It is very important. In this respect, let me call on the Council not to miss the opportunity to support and strike the global tax deal that is just being negotiated within the OECD framework. This is very important. We should not miss this opportunity and we should implement it swiftly later. This would be for the benefit of our economy and obviously for the political standing of the European Union.