What Paul spoke about.

24 Apr

2024

EN Speech

The sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive - Anti-Money Laundering Regulation - Establishing the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (joint debate - Anti-money laundering)

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Mr President, I think this debate shows that we had a great team in the European Parliament finding broad support in a European Parliament. I’m glad for that, though the contributions by Mike Wallace and Patrick Breyer also show that we need to strike the balance between privacy and financial integrity. But I think that we did that, and it’s enshrined in this House and in the work of the Commissio…

24 Apr

2024

EN Speech

The sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive - Anti-Money Laundering Regulation - Establishing the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (joint debate - Anti-money laundering)

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Mr President, dear Commissioner and her team, dear colleagues, today marks a pivotal moment in our collective efforts to fight dirty money and bolster financial integrity in the European economy. As we stand on the brink of voting on a groundbreaking legislative package, I am humbled and proud to have been part of the negotiations that have led us to this pivotal moment. I want to thank dear co-ra…

26 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Transparency and targeting of political advertising (debate)

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Mr President, Madam Commissioner, this year, half of the world population goes to the ballot box, including in June the European elections. It is however not just politicians and political parties campaigning: systems of automated bots and factories of trolls are already there to engage. Ready to ‘flood the zone with shit’ as Steve Bannon put it. Those trolls are trying to manipulate the public de…

7 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Automated data exchange for police cooperation (“Prüm II”) (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, today’s discussion precedes a vote on an important bill, which could be a good starting point for future data sharing frameworks. Europe’s internal borders do not stop criminals, but our internal borders pose big hurdles to our police forces when coordinating with their peers. The Prüm II router will increase efficiency of cooperation and this is very, …

7 Feb

2024

EN Speech

The fight against hate speech and disinformation: responsibility of social platforms within the Digital Services Act (topical debate)

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Madam President, disinformation is a serious threat to the European elections. And Big Tech facilitates it. It not only disseminates disinfo, but also amplifies it through content-recommender algorithms. The algorithms make it a small step from following conservative news to conspiracy theories, and are vulnerable to foreign interference from pro-Kremlin actors. Already, this House called on Commi…

6 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Amendments to the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) and to the Directive relating to undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITSD) (debate)

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Mr President, let me start by saying that fund managers are better informed on the funds than their supervisors and their investors, and they use this advantage to hide risk from supervisors and to extract high fees from investors. For example, retail investors pay 40% more in fees than professional investors. The fees in some European countries are more than twice those in the UK. This is what ec…

5 Oct

2023

EN Speech

The new European strategy for a better internet for kids (BIK+) (debate)

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Madam President, which parent would let their kids walk unsupervised along a busy highway? But in fact, we all do. We let our kids walk around the busiest highway in the world, the internet. Every day our kids use online services where predators, often disguised as other kids, scout for vulnerable potential victims with numerous examples of sextortion and child sexual abuse. It has become very cle…

4 Oct

2023

EN Speech

European green bonds (debate)

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Mr President, thank you, Commissioner, let me start by saying that financial markets are driven by data. Data are crucial for financial investments, so we have a whole industry of auditors, controllers, accountants, checks, double checks – and we need that, if it’s not only about financial return, if we want to take care of people and planets, we need data also on ESG. Otherwise, we cannot change …

4 Oct

2023

EN Speech

European green bonds (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, good that you’re here. The green bonds are a European success story. Out of USD 500 billion of green bonds issued last year, 50% came from Europe – or actually, I should talk about EUR 500 billion, because in a world dominated by the dollar, sustainable finance is a euro stronghold. And it should stay this way, to ensure that sustainable finance – the finance of the …

13 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Recommendations of the Commission on public country by country reporting transposition (debate)

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Mr President, dear Commissioner, transparency is key in the fight against tax avoidance and evasion. Transparency is key in restoring and maintaining public trust in the fairness of tax contribution. And regrettably, not all Member States share the need for transparency and trust. Then again, some Member States do, and do more, and have the ambition to raise the bar. And why not? Even more and mor…

12 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Delivering on the Green Deal: risk of compromising the EU path to the green transition and its international commitments (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, change needs money and for the biggest change since the Industrial Revolution we need a lot of it – EUR 1 trillion by 2030. Governments can fund part of it, but we need the private sector too. The Commission, including EPP Commissioners have done great work mobilising this, with a definition of sustainability and disclosures for financial products. But one key aspect…

12 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Need to adopt the “Unshell” Directive on rules to prevent the misuse of shell entities for tax purposes (debate)

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Mr President, a whopping majority in the European Parliament, 99.7% – it’s a North Korean number – voted in favour of the ‘Unshell’ proposal: an unprecedented united stance against harmful tax practices through shell companies. And it shows that tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion is not – I repeat, – a controversial issue. Indeed, it’s part of our social contract that everyone needs to pay a f…

12 Jul

2023

NL Speech

Putting the European economy at the service of the middle class (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, the 5% richest Europeans own 40% of our wealth. That 5%, that's not you and me. These are the Europeans who are getting richer while sleeping, while millions of others remain working poor. They feel inflation, they feel austerity. Not that 5%. They put their money into e.g. companies and letterbox companies and their assets are hardly taxed. This is the world as it is n…

14 Jun

2023

NL Speech

Lessons learnt from the Pandora Papers and other revelations (debate)

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Mr President, nothing but good about the dead. Silvio Berlusconi has done a lot to promote tax avoidance. Corruption, forgery, money laundering and tax fraud are just a few behaviors that he managed to bring to the attention of the public. He can be placed on an impressive list of royals, celebrities and criminals from the Pandora Papers. The Pandora Papers were the largest in a series of revelati…

14 Jun

2023

NL Speech

Make Europe the place to invest (debate)

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(NL) Mr President, who looks outside – the longest period without rain ever, the Atlantic Ocean at record heat – and thinks: Yeah, I want more of this? Apparently, there are some in this house who think so, because investments are badly needed – €500 billion a year for our climate and environmental goals alone. But attempts to mobilize that money, private and public, the taxonomy, the nature resto…

12 Jun

2023

NL Speech

Competition policy - annual report 2022 (debate)

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Mr President, Fitbit watches, Instagram stories and Giphy poisons have all not been conceived, but have been taken over by bigtech. London has reversed Facebook's takeover of Giphy, but Brussels hasn't stood in the way of bigtech. Where were you, Commissioner Vestager? Tech giants like Google and Facebook do not increase their power by innovating, but by aggressively buying up potential competitor…

10 May

2023

NL Speech

Impact of the interest rate increase decided by the ECB on households and workers (debate)

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President, “Research proves: GRAAIFLATION exists ...’. It is certainly not a habit of me to quote a headline of GeenStijl, but it bites. And this – it is also not a habit – is also true, because companies cause the majority of inflation. Profit margins are at a post-war high. The right thinks it's normal. If companies increase prices, it is market forces. But if employees ask for more salary, then…

10 May

2023

NL Speech

Fighting cyberbullying of young people across the EU (debate)

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The internet is not safe for children. It's like leaving kids alone in a city center on a busy Saturday afternoon. Anything can happen. And one of the forms that make the internet so unsafe is cyberbullying, but I also see sextortion – the extortion of another with intimate images – as part of that. It is high time to break this trend of cyberbullying, sextortion and other forms of virtual violenc…

8 May

2023

NL Speech

Impact on the 2024 EU budget of increasing European Union Recovery Instrument borrowing costs - Own resources: a new start for EU finances, a new start for Europe (debate)

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Mr President, the European Union has debt and a debt. You'll get rid of them. And that sounds logical, that makes sense, but not for the European Member States, because to pay off the European corona debts, extra income is needed. Possibilities to: a carbon tax, a contribution from the largest companies benefiting most from the internal market, or a share of national taxes on the highest assets. F…

19 Apr

2023

EN Speech

Digital euro (debate)

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Mr President, bad money drives out good. This law – Gresham’s law – is empirical, yet the European Central Bank believes otherwise: that good money, digital euro backed by the ECB, will drive out bad money backed by unstable private banks. And as a result, the ECB wants to impose restrictions to limit how much one can hold – up to EUR 3 000 – and where, with private actors. To be clear, the digita…

19 Apr

2023

EN Speech

Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCa) - Information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets (recast) (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues. In 1637, the Netherlands went crazy over tulips. They didn’t know what to use them for, but people believed that their price would go up. Then the bubble burst, savings evaporated and investors were left in ruins. That was 1637, but the similarities with crypto are stark. Nobody knows what to use them for, but they are the next hot thing. Then again, tulips …

15 Feb

2023

EN Speech

European Central Bank - annual report 2022 (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, President Lagarde, the rise in interest rates is at best a necessary evil, but for the banking sector it is a time of fortune. With the higher interest rates, on their reserves, they are raking in profits. It’s about EUR 92 billion this year alone. Professor Paul De Grauwe concludes that this is an unnecessary subsidy of private banks from public money. There are way…

14 Feb

2023

EN Speech

Amendments to the European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs) Regulation (debate)

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Mr President, you have heard the position eloquently put by Jonás Fernández, and that is all true, but I would like to make a critical remark as well. Financial markets, and probably politicians too, frequently suffer from the same illness: short—sightedness. We don’t look ten or 20 years ahead, but only two or three. And this means we forego long term growth to get a quick win. And I’m reminded o…

13 Feb

2023

EN Speech

Following up on measures requested by Parliament to strengthen the integrity of European institutions (debate)

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Madam President, first, our spouses, our parents, our children, and we ourselves are politically exposed persons and banks already apply enhanced due diligence on every single one of us. They check sources of our financial wealth for illicit activities. 17 years after we have obliged banks to do this, we still don't do it ourselves. Now, the good thing is, of course, that in a December resolution …

1 Feb

2023

EN Speech

Need for urgent update of the EU list of high-risk third countries for anti-money laundering and terrorist financing purposes (debate)

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Madam President, sex traffickers, corrupt officials, fraudulent businessmen – the common denominator: they own property in the United Arab Emirates. Not only does the UAE host criminal EU citizens, they also host sanctioned Russians. In Dubai, Russians are among the largest group of foreign real estate investors or barefaced money launderers – it’s ‘Moscow on the Gulf’. The Emirates do not comply …