Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think there is anyone who does not want energy efficiency. The problem is that we need to think about the context in which we are doing this. When we started the debate about energy efficiency, there were totally different conditions. I come from a communist country, Commissioner. I lived in the cold, I lived without light, I did my homework in the dark. I don't want the same thing to happen to my children and grandchildren. You should know that the citizens of Romania, in my country, are very worried, because the information is crazy. "Consume energy and limit yourself to what you can pay". We cannot ‘Procust’s home’, Commissioner. Countries are developed differently, we cannot have the same indicators, the same demands, at different salaries. I believe here that you need to be very flexible, to support Member States that are economically less developed, to be able to support vulnerable consumers, but also industry and small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises. I was rapporteur on behalf of the TRAN Committee, I tried to table a few amendments. I'm a professional engineer and I think we need to think about impact. That is why I ask you, Commissioner, and I also ask colleagues, to come to an agreement so that this energy saving does not lead to undignified life for our citizens. (The speaker agreed to respond to a blue card intervention)

Mr President, this sure report is important, a negotiation has been attempted to strike a balance between the decarbonisation of the aviation sector and the possibilities of industry. I have always believed, as an engineer, that we must be realistic when we take some measures and do them at the pace at which, as the Commissioner said today, the industry can reach those objectives, especially since, of course, the aviation industry in the European Union is not the biggest polluter, on the contrary, only 2% is the responsibility of aviation. I could not support it in the end and I abstained on this report because I do not think it is the optimal solution. I am closer to the Commission variant, which is why I hope that the institutional negotiations will achieve a better balance than it was today in Parliament, and I very much believe that we, the European Parliament, must always think about when we take decisions and about the impact that the application of our decisions immediately brings on the sector concerned and, ultimately, on the citizens.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, obviously cycling is not just fun and leisure. The implications are manifold, from health to the replacement of more expensive and polluting means of transport. Obviously, from my point of view, it is not a strategy at European level that prevents Member States from having subsidiarity and from thinking about their mode of transport. But we are thinking here of a European strategy, because yes, here's a colleague, in the last term, Mr Kramer, had a very beautiful project of 5,000 km, a strategy of a bicycle track from the Nordic countries to the south, to the east. So, I think this strategy is also obviously about funds, because you can't build now, every country builds highways, streets, without having these well-thought-out, connected bike lanes. Connectivity, this is what we are talking about in the European Union and - why not - it has been said here, I want to repeat, it will also have an implication on the production of bicycles in Europe and there will be jobs for more Europeans.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must start from the idea that air transport is extremely important for the economy and that air transport in the European Union is not alone on Earth. We have air transport in other parts of the globe, where emissions are certainly much higher than in the European Union, where we have only 2%. I agree that we need to work on decarbonising the aviation sector, but we need to do it rationally, and I am glad, Commissioner, that you have also thought about the impact on companies, on industry. We have to do it gradually. Technological neutrality is necessary, but we must do so at the pace at which industry can intervene. I will not be able to vote on all the amendments, for example, those that have an impact on small airports and small operators. We also have to think about them and yes, we see how indispensable transport is now, when it is messed up and what a negative effect it has on citizens, on the economy, on tourism. Now, we need to take sensible measures, and I am glad that there are colleagues who have said this. We need to decarbonise at the rate that industry allows.

Mr President, Commissioner, we are, in fact, discussing a subject that pertains to people's lives: heat, drought, fires. In my country, in the county where I live, they burned the wheat fields, they don't only burn the forests, they burn the grain. What are those farmers doing? They have bank loans. The cost of bank loans has increased, at least in my country. I'm left with nothing. We have a surveillance system, we have a civil protection mechanism, we also have a solidarity fund. The question is how do we get this money to the affected people as soon as possible? And yes, we are now dealing with the effects. We have to go to causes at the same time. But now it's burning and we have to put out this fire, Commissioner. So, I ask you on behalf of Romanian farmers, on behalf of Romanian citizens who have been without water for months. In whole areas it hasn't rained and it's just cracked ground and people drink the water with the portion. So we must intervene urgently, surely, in collaboration with the governments of the Member States, but we urgently need to intervene now.

Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President, the European Investment Bank has an extremely important role in the European Union's economy, especially now, amid the triple crisis - I could say - because we started with the pandemic, as a result of the pandemic, we had an economic crisis, obviously, and now the crisis of war. I have read the report carefully and appreciate the work of the EIB as a whole. But as a man coming from production, I say that banks, not only the EIB, all banks need to adapt their working tools to the concrete situation. And here, I have some numbers here. In 2020, and 66.1 billion, the report says, were concentrated in three countries: Italy, France and Spain. What does that mean? It means that countries in the east, like my country, Romania, have the administrative capacity and the financial capacity to borrow, but they do not have these capacities to borrow. And what does that mean? It means that regional disparities are growing, it means that we do not have the cohesion that we want, in fact, all the European institutions. I believe that the EIB must give priority to lending to social projects, to SMEs. Yes, Mr President, you said that 850 thousand SMEs were credited in 2021, but even the 20th part, if we think about how many SMEs we have in the European Union, did not receive these credits, and I also believe that the instruments that you must use now must specifically support social projects, projects of SMEs, micro-enterprises. Look, there are countries, like my country, where the reference interest rate at the bank reached 4.6%. It means that the entrepreneur, the SME cannot bear a cost of borrowing at that level. And this is what I think we must do together with the EIB and the Member States, obviously, to find solutions so that we can now help, in this impasse, in these overlapping crises, the economic environment, because, after all, without the functioning of the economic environment, we have no budget either at national or at European level.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have learned from a very young age that an injustice you do not remedy with another injustice, that solidarity must be done in such a way that you do not create other serious things. And yes, I speak from the perspective of my country, Romania. We were very open to helping refugees. Now we are very open to help transport grain, but we have problems related to the quality of infrastructure, the quantity of means of transport, we have problems even with the human resource. Therefore, Romania should not be left alone just because it is at the border and then be accused of not facilitating the transport of grain. And yes, the second issue is related to national farmers, farmers in my country, who have already raised the issue that there is no rigorous control of cereals that cross to be exported to third countries and cereals that remain inside our country, inside Romania, or even inside the internal market. That is why I believe, Commissioner, that concrete measures are needed. Everyone said to fix it, but what are the solutions? The solutions are very clear from my point of view, budgets and administrative support to be able to have special crossing lanes, but also a control of what enters and exits Ukraine.

Mr President, Commissioner, of course, I regret that we no longer have the Council here, it is probably on its way somewhere, Mr President. I wanted to tell him that he informed us here that he had prepared a European political community. I wanted to remind him that, historically, the European Union must be an economic community. And what do we do for it: for the people of the European Union, for the countries that are lagging behind, for the regions that need more cohesion, for the citizens? What about the food crisis? What about the energy crisis? And I wanted to ask the President: What is happening in the Netherlands? My country had an unfair resolution. In the Netherlands, I see that governments have taken out law enforcement and are shooting at farmers, at those farmers who provide us with our food in the European Union. Unfortunately, we have no one to turn to. Mr Vice-President of the Commission, please inform the President and I want an answer. Do we or do we not have one union? Will my country be in Schengen or won't it be?

Madam President, Prime Minister, I appreciate, I tell you from the outset, the priorities of the Czech Presidency and I wish you success. I come from Romania, I know your country well. I was a child when, in 1968, your country was invaded by Russia, and I rejoiced when my parents suffered alongside the Czech Republic and when my country opposed the entry of Russia. But, Prime Minister, you have spoken here of solutions, reasonable solutions to solve your priorities. One of them is the internal market, you mentioned it too. The internal market is fragmented, Prime Minister. I am Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Internal Market, I have raised this issue to 16 Chairs. You're the seventeenth, I hope you'll fix it. We cannot have two Europes, Schengen and non-Schengen. We cannot have second-class citizens and please, Prime Minister, do not disappoint me as the French Presidency, to which I have asked this, because, yes, my country meets the technical conditions of 2011 and this Parliament has voted several times for the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into Schengen. I therefore ask you, Prime Minister, to complete your priorities also with the internal market union, without having two internal markets, Schengen and non-Schengen.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on the issue of care, I believe that there are three main directions in which we must act. Of course, it falls within the competence of the Member States. I know the problem very well in my country and in the countries of the East. We have a problem, on the one hand, with those who do the act of care, very often they are treated without dignity, they do not have an employment contract. We know very well that from the East many people have gone to the West to take more money and do this act of care. On the other hand, we have the problem of the caregivers. Very often, the act of care is not of quality, and we have the problem of infrastructure. Commissioner, if we do not include a budget in the European strategy to allocate money for infrastructure, because, for example, in my country, we do not have capacities for the elderly, who cannot be cared for in the family and who need these centres, homes for the elderly, where they can be cared for properly, we will not be able to resolve the situation. I have been trying for some years to convince the Commission that the answer we receive systematically from the Commission must also be allocated, that elderly people must be cared for in the family, it is absolutely absurd, because they are people who have no place in the family, they no longer have families, and for this we must allocate budgets from the social budget, from the Social Fund, in order to be able to have places for these people who deserve our respect until the last day of life.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, here is, once again, a deadlock in the Council. Yes, hiding under subsidiarity that taxation falls within the competence of the national state is ridiculous, because here we are talking about an agreement to put an end to the scourge, to put an end to tax evasion, which is transnational. Let's be serious! They cannot fight SMEs in a Member State or even a Member State against tax havens. That is why we, Parliament, have voted massively to have this agreement, and I very much believe that we cannot get rid of this inequality, after all, and I support that both Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 be resolved through this agreement. Yes, the role of the Commission and the Council is to get to the implementation of what we voted for, to defend European citizens, to defend European businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises, and to have ethics and fairness, to pay this minimum tax of 15% and corporate tax where the multinational operates.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, tonight I want to talk about the rights of carriers, freight forwarders, in the European Union market. I have received many petitions and recently I was on a visit from the TRAN Committee to France to see whether or not the Mobility Package we voted on here is having a negative effect. And yes, we found that, as I said in the debates on the mobility package, we have unsecured parking lots. I remind you that a year ago, a Romanian truck driver was killed in a parking lot. Nothing much has happened since then, the research is not over. Shooting drivers also complain about unjustified and unbalanced controls. I asked and I ask, Commissioner, I wrote to the Commission recently, that there should be a statistic in all Member States with the frequency of checks on cars and trucks, depending on the country of origin. I have concrete petitions that in France, for example, shootings from Bulgaria, Romania and Eastern countries are frequently controlled. I think there should be such a statistic. I do not believe that there must be discrimination and I also believe that we must ensure equal conditions of transport. Drivers are asked to read the documents in French, English, German. We spoke then that there must be documents in the language of that country, because we cannot force a driver to know 24 languages.

Madam President, Commissioner, frankly, I regret that this important project is being debated very briefly, without allotted time and at such a late hour. I believe that we must be interested in the future of international investment, in the policy that we are doing on international investment, because yes, and in my country I have met exactly what the rapporteur was saying here: heavy money is sometimes paid from national budgets for investments that have not complied with the conditions of ethics and equity in that country, on equal terms with domestic investors, and Member States cannot win, because, yes, they go to arbitration before going to national courts. That is why I believe that, first of all, the Commission - we do not have the right to legislate -, the Council, must reach ... to have a legislative act and a new policy on international investment. Yes, we need them in the European Union, but under conditions of fairness and ethics.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, I took the floor here today, because I wanted to ask you, Minister, - do you conclude your Presidency - if you do not think that the Council should never exist, should it never be missing from the agenda and the discussion about the situation of citizens in the European Union? Today I had a debate in my country about the perspective of the European Union and I was asked what is happening with the future of the European Union? People are impoverished. I do not know, Commissioner, what the President meant by the wind blowing in Europe, but people have become impoverished. The wind blows in their pockets. I want to ask the Council that from now on there should be no Council meeting without discussing these things and I cannot not end with bitterness, Mr. Minister, that in six months the French Presidency failed this time too to put Romania on the list of countries that deserve to be in Schengen, because it complies with all its criteria. This discrimination leads to skepticism and mistrust. We need to enlarge the European Union, but we also need to think about how we act inside.

Mr President, Commissioner, I must say that I am very glad that we have come up with this subject, but, as was said here, if it took 10 years to keep discussing finding an instrument, I hope it will not take another 10 years until we apply it. Because, you see, we had discussed an important topic before. Parliament has no power of legislative initiative and we are at the mercy of the Commission: take or not take our resolutions. Life has priority, Commissioner, and you know this: wait 10 years for a decision, we lose the trust of the citizens. Yes, forced labour must be excluded, not only from third countries, because it also competes, in a way, with producers in the European Union, in the internal market, but it must also be eliminated within the internal market, because I have enough examples when citizens from the East are held to indecent work, not to say more, in other states. Therefore, I urge you to come up with a proposal, so that we have a trade instrument for the elimination of forced labour.

Mr President, Commissioner, representative of the Council, I can only begin with a criticism of you, because the reason is childish, to say that the train is late. You have to take action, to be here, on such an important subject. Because a colleague from Renew reminded me of what Mr Macron said, I will also remind you what he said in 2017. I am pro-European. I, I am pro-European and I want the European Union project to exist, because in the global context, we need to have a strong European Union. But not the one Mr. Macron wants. And as she said in 2017, I'll tell you now that I'll never support her: They want a two-speed Europe. I will support this resolution, we need the European Parliament to have legislative initiative. I no longer want unanimity in the Council, because my country is outside the Schengen area precisely because of the opposition of one or two heads of state. But, Minister, tell Mr Macron that the aim of amending the treaties is not to have a two-speed Europe. We are moving towards skepticism. Citizens need to have confidence in the European Union.

Dear colleague, I understand from your speech that you support this topic and I support it, at least from two points of view: the fact that Parliament does not have the right of legislative initiative and the fact that, behold, my country stands outside, because only one country opposes it, being unanimous in the Council. But, I ask you, do you think we need to go towards a federal union or remain a union of states with subsidiarity and national constitutions?

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what we will do tomorrow will probably decide the direction in which the internal market of the European Union and the lives of its citizens will take. I am worried and I am worried because I know the situation in many countries very well. I am best aware of the situation in my country, in Romania, and if we apply Procust’s bed when we have states and citizens and companies developed differently, obviously the most vulnerable will suffer. That is why I very much believe that tomorrow there are some amendments that should be voted on in order to be able to correct what came from the Commission's proposal. Also, Mr Timmermans, I think you said very well that there must be fairness, but it is not fairness because, behold, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are not protected by this package. And I also have a problem with the vulnerable consumer, the citizen. All the costs, all the taxes that go to companies, of course they ultimately go to the price of the product and to the citizen, and we have to understand – I come from the industry – that the industry needs time and money for innovation and repowering. I agree to have a clean environment, I agree to go in this direction, but we have to be realistic.

Dear colleague, you spoke of ambition and I want to ask you whether you now, knowing the package we have to vote for tomorrow, consider that the ambition is strictly in line with reality and whether it is covered by everything we have to vote for tomorrow, the issue of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, because the French Commissioner, who belongs to your group, has just launched a reindustrialisation strategy last year. Do you think that this package will help reindustrialise the internal market and maintain competitiveness vis-à-vis other global powers, which otherwise pollute much more than the European Union?

Mr President, Commissioner, of course education is very important for economic competence and competitiveness and for the social order, after all, within the European Union. Of course, we must start from the idea that education is subsidiarity, it is the competence of the Member States. The question to the Commission is how, in a complementary way, the European Commission, the European Union, could support education, and here I think there are three essential things. On the one hand, the recognition of qualifications - and I would suggest, Commissioner, at European Union level, that we can have budgets allocated to studies related to vocational education and lifelong learning, because these two things are deficient in many Member States and we can come up with examples of good practice, with studies, how to make education based on the economic structure of each Member State and, obviously, that throughout the European area we have vocational, professional education, on what we need now, because we all know that we have a shortage of qualifications and, of course, the recognition of qualifications, Commissioner.

Madam President, Commissioner, I have chosen to speak today about dual citizenship in the European Union versus the double standard. And why I chose this. Romania has over one million workers in Spain. They live there, they have families there, they have children. And yet, they do not have access to all jobs - as we say, that in the European Union, all European citizens have access - because they are not granted dual citizenship, they are required to renounce Romanian citizenship. What is curious, however, is that Spain has a bilateral agreement with France and the French are granted dual citizenship without being required to renounce their citizenship. What can I explain to the citizens of Romania? I was there, I met them, they contribute their work to the GDP in Spain and I did not have a coherent answer, because no one gave it to me. I also wrote a letter to the Commission, a written question, because it seems to me that we are being discriminated against again. Once again, unity does not work, we no longer have a European Union, we no longer have a single market, we no longer have free access to jobs, as the Treaty says.

Madam President, Commissioner, I believe that the debates on this issue lead in one sense, namely that we must hurry to apply this minimum level of taxation for multinationals, because it is something that is expected not only by us, by the MEPs who have spoken here, it is expected by the citizens, it is expected by micro-enterprises, by small and medium-sized enterprises. We need to achieve a tax ethic in the European area, in the European Union area, and yes, as a former entrepreneur in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises, I can tell you that they are pressed by multinationals, because the best workers are taken by multinationals, the investment power, the capitalization power. And here, in addition, I go there, to the areas where the tax is the lowest. Therefore, I believe that you must make every effort so that we can apply as quickly as possible. It is a first step, maybe we should have had a lower rate, maybe we should have had a higher percentage for taxation, but I think we should not get stuck and we must now start this system proposed by you and voted by us, certainly, tomorrow.

Mr President, we all know that the Western Balkans are geographically part of Europe. We all know what has been repeated here: The Council has already approved the accession of North Macedonia to the European Union since 2020. And we also know, or should know, the leadership of the European Union, that we need to make political decisions in context, and we all know the context now: the war in Ukraine. Russia rejoices if we prolong the strengthening of the European Union with the Western Balkan states. That's why I think we need to be urgent. It is a pity that the Council is not here and has not been to Strasbourg. The council doesn't give us the presence, so they can listen to us here. So I support the accession of North Macedonia and let's not let them down, because if a survey is done, we will see the credibility of the European Union and confidence decrease, precisely on the delay of some decisions. And yes, you can try, Commissioner, to take a survey in Macedonia. If the citizens want, we must strengthen our European Union with the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership states. I therefore support Macedonia's accession to the European Union as soon as possible.

Madam President, Commissioner, we have debated the rule of law a lot. I am also a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Justice, I voted for this conditionality for European funds; I am also a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, but I am also a Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Internal Market and the uncertainty that has remained in the minds of citizens is why the citizen has to pay if the politicians are wrong - because the failure of the rule of law actually depends on the politicians and not on the citizen alone. The question I'm asking you now would be: how to make this conditionality apply because yes, we must protect European funds, because yes, we must eliminate corruption, but do not affect the citizens of the country where we find, the European institutions, that human rights are violated, that justice does not work, that there is no separation of powers in the state, in order not to affect the lives of citizens. Because I do not think that we want this through the sanction that we actually give if we put the conditionality of the functioning of the rule of law. And frankly, it is not yet clear to citizens and we should know how to explain in order to increase citizens' credibility in the European institutions.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's debate on the agreement on Moldova's accession to the European Union is welcome. Mrs. President is also welcome, who presented her point of view, but I think it is necessary not only to vote on this agreement, but to find a solution to help and support the citizens of the Republic of Moldova, now that they are in the face of fire, in the face of war, now that they no longer have a market, when they have economic and financial problems. Let's bring forward that help that we proposed, let's support them with procedures and regulations regarding the public administration, because Mrs. President said that they have a crisis regarding civil servants in the public administration and find solutions to bring forward that money that was scheduled to be given to the Republic of Moldova, because they know the Republic of Moldova very well. Moldovans are generous, but if they have nothing, they can't give more. And we have a historic duty now to support the Republic of Moldova to speed up accession and to financially support the citizens there.