Speeches

Madam President, Today you presented us with the state of the EU and the Commission's proposals for the future. Unfortunately, you have only presented dreams, not figures, not the impact on the lives of citizens. Trust in the EU and the EU project is falling precisely because of lack of transparency, poor communication, lack of fairness, fragmented internal market, social crisis, homeless young people and low-paid jobs. With such management, the European project is in danger. We are in our second term and farmers in Romania are further discriminated against, caught with lower subsidies than other countries, but you talked about cohesion and fairness. Do not destroy Europe through authoritarian and undemocratic management. Madam President, I call for real collaboration with the European Parliament to find the best measures for citizens.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about female entrepreneurship. I know him very well, I run an association in my country for 29 years. Commissioner, there is some statistical data that clearly shows that women also have a lower percentage in employment, not only in agriculture, and in urban areas, but now we are talking about rural areas. It is not only in agriculture that women can develop businesses there, in gastronomy, in crafts, in crafts. The problem is that we do not have targeted policies and here it is not necessarily a matter of gender equality, but the fact that we have an unused resource. And I'll give you an example: The European Union had a very good programme in 2009 called "Embassadress to Women Entrepreneurs in Every Country", take it back. When I was a minister, I did a ‘Woman Entrepreneur’ programme that was budgeted for women. Women must have job security, pension security, income security for raising children, and we will certainly have a higher percentage then, because, paradoxically, we have more than 50% of women in most states, but we have a much lower degree of employment.

Dear colleague, I listened carefully to what you said. I'd like to ask you a few specific questions. Do you know a statistic, how much of the population of the European Union and the world eats meat and how many are vegetarians? That's a question. Second question: what do you think we would do in the European Union if mountain areas, pastures were not used? How many millions of jobs would we lose and how much would the European Union budget lose by not using the livestock sector?

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking today about a sector that is much more than just a component of agriculture, and I am glad, Commissioner, that you understand. You have to take the next step: to impose within the Commission the measures that we, Parliament, see from left to right, are calling for. Let's not forget that livestock farming is second in global meat production, after China and ahead of the United States, but we will not be able to maintain this unless we have very clear policies. We have to recognize and be honest ‑ the sector is under significant pressure. We see a decline in numbers, a reduction in the number of farmers, a growing uncertainty for the future. Too many farmers are facing problems. We have animal diseases, we don't have a risk fund to give farmers money for animal loss when we don't have the vaccine. It's not their fault that we haven't been able to have a research and have a vaccine. Of course, this brings us to another key point: European Union producers produce at the highest cost and we need to take this care in trade agreements.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are once again debating something important, but which we are not debating for the first time. I am sorry, Madam President of the Commission, I have been hearing it since 2019 saying what it should, but it does not say what it has done, because of the energy market in the European Union, of the single market, of organising and having a solidarity plan, of eliminating speculation in the field of energy, we are still discussing. Commissioner, I believe that we must take seriously what the Minister was saying here, namely, we must take clear measures to lower energy prices. We're addicted, but when did we create this addiction, when did we start the war in Iran? No, no, no, no, no Dependence has been for a long time. And then, of course, we won't have a miraculous solution. Let's see the measures! People are tired of hearing that they should. We have to do it! And I want to end by saying this: Mr. Weber's hypocrisy, which, behold, no longer stands here, is boundless. I mean he says about my country that the motion was signed by an extreme party, but he votes with the extreme right on all the proposals of our group related to the life of the citizens.

Mr President, Commissioner, of course the new financial year is extremely important for the future of Europe and of course I, as a citizen and as responsible for the internal market, as Vice-President, would have liked this budget to be much clearer. First of all, to have a separate budget for agriculture, to have much more money and targets for small and medium-sized enterprises, to make them solid, sustainable, resilient and clear that it is very important how we allocate budgets for the housing crisis. The budget is not perfect, but I want to thank my colleagues who made corrections to the Commission's proposal and I hope that we can improve. And yes, I agree, let's also think about how we save, because we don't just think about how we spend. There are still reserves. We haven't recovered a lot of money from frauds, as they say here, digital tax, cryptocurrency tax. So we can make a budget that meets our needs.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to talk about the Waste Water Directive. We all know – we want a clean environment, we want clean water. But, Commissioner, from all the discussions we have had with the experts, it seems that the Commission has not carried out an impact assessment. The tax is unbalanced and all the weight falls on the drug industry. There are 52 factories in my country that can be closed as soon as possible if the directive is not revised. And why? As we all know, there is a price to pay for medicine. We cannot change the price of other products if there is an extra charge, if there is an extra cost. And we know well that generic medicines, 70% of them, treat the population. What will we do if we don't have medicines for the population? It is very simple to do this study with someone neutral, with specialists, to see how we can make this directive necessary for wastewater, necessary for the clean environment, not fall heavily on the pharmaceutical industry and the cosmetics industry. We have sent many letters, a motion for a resolution has been made, but if we continue like this, we will have a population that we will not be able to treat in the European Union.

Madam President, Commissioner, once again, the Commission is holding an own-initiative report. Very good. You can't be free, you can't make decisions about how to spend your money, many or few, if you don't have a minimal financial culture. And it doesn't have to be done now, when we're adults or when we start a business, even after we finish college, it has to be done from school, maybe even from primary school. And we need something else, we need to understand, we need to understand, why is it good for children and adults to have this culture? Because of course, it has been said here, there are a lot of influencers, there are a lot of hackers, there are a lot of people who are cheating. There were homeless people, there were young people, who started a business, and they went bankrupt. So we need it, but we only have the power to make an own-initiative report. The decision is up to you and we are waiting for you to come up with a concrete proposal on how to make a European policy for financial literacy and for the growth of financial literacy.

Mr President, Commissioner, the protection of financial interests, we have debated this very often. I have been a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control for two mandates and I have discussed with all the institutions that we pay. Citizens pay them to protect the financial interests of the European Union. But does it protect them? Doesn't personal example matter? We have former Commissioners under investigation, we have Members of the European Parliament under investigation. I was the rapporteur on the discharge of the Commission's discharge report and I did not vote for it because the President refused. There is no transparency either in the Council or in the Commission. How do you think a system and mechanism to protect financial interests can be put in place? For what we borrow, it is very important that we also help to have control mechanisms. At the meeting with OLAF and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office we were told – we have no mechanism to control the money we give in Ukraine and elsewhere. So, Commissioner and colleagues, if we do not really control how money is spent, and the efficiency of investments is also very important – you can spend and get nothing.

Madam President, Commissioner, Vice-President, of course the European Investment Bank, especially in this context, has a very important role to play. I am a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control and I have looked at this very often. I believe that investments must be well calculated, well targeted, calculated the risk, obviously, not to happen as was the case here, the example of Sweden, with the closure of a company after a lot of investment. Of course, you have that role. I think we need more transparency, but I also call for: I believe that there is a need for a better distribution of investment funds in all Member States. In my country, in Romania, we have an investment bank, but we do not have funds, as other Member States have and certainly aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises, especially because small and medium-sized enterprises now have the least capitalization power, have the least investment power, have the least innovation power and I believe that this is the place to be in the next period. And I conclude by asking: Of the 300 billion you said you had in the next 3 years, how many are for SMEs?

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union's agreement with the United States, of course, is a necessity, but from my point of view, the agreement also means respect between partners. Raising taxes five times, from 3 to 15, wanting to impose for steel and aluminum 50% and believing that you respect your partner, seems absolutely unacceptable to me. That is why I am thinking what would have happened if the agreement had been signed and remained as conceived by the Commission. Commissioner, you cannot fail to take into account the conditions and the market of the European Union. Luckily, here we are, the Parliament, and that is why we need to strengthen the Parliament's position, we have imposed ourselves and we impose ourselves with very clear requirements. A trade agreement will work in the long term if there is respect and fairness between the two parties. And yes, I cannot help but say that the impact, if we had gone with these taxes, the impact on industry, especially the metals industry, would be disastrous. And that is why, Commissioner, I ask you to convey and respect Parliament's position!

Mr President, Commissioner, we have learned today from the Council that there would be no danger, that we must not be afraid that there is no danger to energy security. Commissioner, let us be realistic. Yesterday I met with 11 branches of industry in Romania: cement industry, steel, metallurgy, fertilizer industry, construction, building materials. They all raised the question of the cost of energy. And before the war in Iran, we had three times the cost of energy in the European Union. We must end the dependencies, we must have a policy and indeed a plan of energy production in the European Union. Of course we must have ambitions, but I believe that ambitions must be linked to realistic goals. And it said Affordable Pricing Board. Commissioner, the affordable price is not the same in Luxembourg as Romania. In Romania we have pensions of 400 euros, we have salaries of 800 euros and cannot bear these high energy prices.

Mr President, Commissioner, it is good that we are discussing an energy package. In fact, we have been discussing for a very long time that we need an energy market, because - it has been said here - we have millions of European citizens living in energy poverty. In my country, in Romania, we have millions of citizens who cannot pay their bill. Why? First of all, in Europe we have the price higher than in the United States, in China. But in the countries of the east it is even more expensive than in the countries of the west, although the purchasing power is lower. And yes, it is also a speculation. We have raised this issue before in Parliament: how can we get rid of the speculation that certain suppliers are making? And we will not be able to have reasonable prices for citizens if we do not have energy production in the European Union. There are other methods, Commissioner - waste energy, biogas. We don't use all the ways to get cheaper energy. And I would like you to answer me: what should I say to the citizens when I return to my country? What concrete measure are you taking to ensure that the price of energy on the European Union market ... citizens benefit from equal prices and are able to pay their bills? Because the energy input also goes to the industrialists. Talk to the industrialists - the aluminum, steel, cement industries. Everyone is talking about the cost of energy.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, frankly, I am glad that today we are discussing International Education Day here and - it has also been said here - it must not remain just an abstract debate. I know, Commissioner, that you are concerned about this and I think we need to find solutions in this pact for education, especially for poor areas, for rural areas, where children do not have the same chance. Today we also talked about the competitiveness of the European Union. We cannot have a competitive economy without a school result, without this school product, and that is why I would like, if possible, to find a lever. We have very good Erasmus programmes. A lot of young people from all the Member States have used this programme, but maybe we can find a geographical balance, find solutions as ... sure, it is the competence of the Member States, together with the Member States - to find solutions for all children to have access. The figures are disastrous worldwide and at the level of the European Union, but we are interested in the European Union, to see how we can have access, to have access to education for all children to be well, in fact, for us.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Social Pillar is obviously an objective of the Commission. Social cohesion within the internal market is also an objective of the Commission, but has failed. Commissioner, in my country, Romania, which you know, one in three children is in poverty. 1.2 million children are excluded - social exclusion. In order to be cohesive and, unfortunately, what Mr Macron was saying ‐ Multi-speed Europe ‐ there can be no such discrimination. A person who has a salary of 600 euros, a person with disabilities who has 150 euros in Romania, cannot have access to housing. So it's an extraordinary discrepancy. How did social cohesion work? If we do not really make social cohesion, social protection, the conditions of workers, people with disabilities, mothers, Romania loses 1.5 million inhabitants in a decade, it has the highest demographic decrease. We cannot have a multi-speed Europe with more conditions and more, so to speak, facilities for citizens. Commissioner, true cohesion is needed, with concrete measures.