Speeches

Madam President, Madam Vice-President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Today, online platforms determine who is seen and who is not. You determine the prices. They decide who gets access to what information and dictate the rules of digital ecosystems. The Digital Markets Act has the potential to ensure fair competition online if it is not limited to the giants. Those who only care about GAFAM – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft – and those who only care about it overlook the fact that there are other problematic sectors in many sectors. Gatekeeper There are those for whom we have to create rules. In the tourism industry, the medium-sized economy in particular is often dependent on platforms and must bow to their specifications. Here we need more innovation and competition, even if it is now a question of transforming a lot in the sense of sustainability. Important for the distribution of responsibility is also: We in the Committee on Transport have called for the rules of Parliament and the Member States to be adopted and implemented by the Commission. Strengthening the Member States weakens our fight against these platforms.

Mr Vice-President, Commissioner, Minister for Foreign Affairs! In recent weeks, there has been both good and bad news in the fight against unfair tax practices. The bad news was that we Pandora papers once again recalled that there is still much to be done in the fight against aggressive tax planning and tax evasion. The good news was that 136 states agreed on a new common framework for corporate taxation with a global minimum tax and new rules for the taxation of the digital economy. This was a strong sign of international cooperation. I am particularly pleased, Commissioner, that in the end Ireland, Hungary and Estonia also managed to join the agreement. Because the European Union should be at the forefront of the movement on this issue. This also means: Once the ink is dry, the Commission should – please direct this to Mr Gentiloni, who is responsible – start transposing it into European law. In any case, we are ready for swift implementation. But being at the forefront of the movement also means sticking to the agreements, including the commitment to refrain from unilateral digital taxes. I think that should also be part of the agreement. Here I would like a clear signal from the European Commission. But it must then also say how we can achieve other revenue opportunities in the European Union's own resources.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, The European Union has had a money laundering problem for years. There are estimates that the volume of suspicious transactions within Europe amounts to a three-digit billion. At the urging of the European Parliament this summer, the European Commission has finally taken up our long-standing demands and put forward proposals for a more binding set of rules and an independent and hopefully powerful authority. These are undoubtedly proposals that point in the right direction. But we shouldn't fool ourselves: We are only making progress in the fight against money laundering if the Member States are also involved, and unfortunately this is far too often the case today. If I can only take my own country, Germany, we see, for example, that the anti-money laundering special unit based at customs is pushing a huge mountain of unresolved suspicions ahead of it. In the meantime, even criminal offences are being investigated in the office. Incidentally, the Federal Minister of Finance and possibly future Chancellor Olaf Scholz bears the responsibility for this, and it is interesting that he had to admit at the hearing in the responsible committee that he has never visited this authority, which he himself has created. But there is not only a lack of assets, there is also a lack of will in the Member States. We need a stronger European role and a strong European authority, otherwise we will fail miserably.

Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Foreign Minister, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen! The ambitious environmental and climate goals we have set ourselves as the European Union require significant transformations of our economic model. This transformation will pose considerable challenges to many European companies, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises and those operating in energy-intensive sectors. We must now ask ourselves whether or not we want to support the European economy in this transformation. When I look at the European Commission's consultation documents on the new guidelines on climate, energy and environmental aid, I already have the impression that the Commission wants to leave the European economy, and in particular small and medium-sized enterprises, in the rain. To cut the list of eligible sectors by three-quarters exactly when the European economy is facing a millennium transformation is the wrong signal. It seems that the Commission's strategy here is to provide the best incentives for rapid transformation by reducing aid possibilities as quickly and radically as possible. However, collapsing in no way solves the structural problems – such as the high energy costs at present or the fact that there are simply no savings opportunities in the energy-intensive sector. It's all exhausted already. If we delete the opportunities for such sectors here, we will only create higher costs and less competitiveness. That is why I call on you to design the guidelines in such a way that energy-intensive production continues to be possible... (The President withdrew the floor from the speaker.)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, In fact, today's debate should have been a joint debate that would have addressed both the labour and social aspects of the European Semester and the economic aspects. Unfortunately, the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left have prevented the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs from issuing an opinion on this important issue. Instead, there is the report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which has become a "wish you what" and which, incidentally, in many places interferes with issues that do not fall within the competence of the Employment Committee at all. And when I listen like this today, I'm really wondering: Does anyone else here know what the semester process means? The semester process has been created to prevent states from falling into the debt trap at an early stage. If we do everything you demand here, then all states are in debt trap and will be bankrupt in the long term! This report makes one objective very clear: They want to transform the European Union into a debt union, systematically undermine the instruments of economic governance and also abuse the European Recovery Fund for an agenda that has nothing to do with competitiveness and reform efforts. If we do the European Semester after your blueprint, we will completely gut economic governance in the European Union. That is why I reject, many of us reject this report.