What Olivier spoke about.

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EN Written Statement

Breaches of EU law and of the rights of LGBTIQ citizens in Hungary as a result of the adopted legal changes in the Hungarian Parliament - The outcome of 22 June hearings under Article 7(1) of the TEU regarding Poland and Hungary (continuation of debate)

The overwhelming majority of the Council members were outraged by the anti-LGBTIQ law Orbán introduced in Hungary. Rightfully so. Orbán has crossed redlines before but that was a new low. I welcome the response by most heads of state and government but it should not stop here. The Council needs to trigger Article 7 against this Hungarian Government. All legal means should be applied in order to sh…

28 Apr

2026

FR Speech

Joint debate - Discharge 2024 (joint debate)

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Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the discharge of the European Commission is an essential moment in our democratic control. It makes it possible to assess whether European funds are committed effectively and, above all, whether they are in line with the objectives set. The least that can be said is that many challenges persist, as indicated b…

22 Oct

2025

FR Speech

Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2024 (debate)

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Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Court of Auditors' annual report confirmed all our concerns: an overall error rate of 3,6 % and even 5,7 % for cohesion funds. Years pass and problems remain. In addition, we know that the Commission aims to import the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) model into the Multiannual Financial Framework. H…

6 May

2025

FR Speech

Discharge 2023 (joint debate)

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Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, during the 2023 Commission discharge exercise, we talked a lot about NGOs and other peripheral subjects, but for my part, I would like to refocus the debate on the worrying figures provided by the European Court of Auditors, whose quality of work I once again welcome: an overall higher error rate of 5,6 % than…

11 Mar

2025

FR Speech

Presentation of the proposal on Critical Medicines Act (CMA) (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe can no longer remain a spectator of its own vulnerability. We all remember the shortages that have hit our continent in recent years: Amoxicillin, cancer treatments, paracetamol, anesthetics... So many essential drugs that have been sorely missed, in our hospitals as in our pharmacies, which has put lives in danger. These stock-outs did n…

11 Feb

2025

FR Speech

The need to address urgent labour shortages and ensure quality jobs in the health care sector (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, hospitals are under stress, nursing homes are overwhelmed, medical deserts are spreading: this acute shortage of staff jeopardises the quality of care and access to treatment for millions of citizens. Across Europe, our health systems are suffering from the same emergency, the dramatic shortage of caregivers. 1.2 million is the number of doctors, nurses and midwives tha…

23 Oct

2024

FR Speech

Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2023 (debate)

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Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the annual report of the Court of Auditors has amplified many of my concerns: an ever-increasing overall error rate of 5.6%, a stratospheric error rate for cohesion funds of 9.3% and the amount remaining to be settled which continues its mad rush and peaks at EUR 543 billion. I also read, like everyone else, t…

22 Oct

2024

FR Speech

General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2025 – all sections (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a budget is obviously more than columns of figures. This is the translation of our political priorities. And our political priorities for 2025, as well as for the next Multiannual Financial Framework, must be geared towards investments to develop our strategic autonomy. A strategic autonomy that starts with the reindustrialisation of our continent, the return of…

18 Oct

2023

FR Speech

Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2022 (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Court of Auditors' report, which I would like to thank for its excellent work, has amplified my many concerns: an ever-increasing error rate in the cohesion areas of the European Development Funds and for high-risk expenditure, with an error rate of 6%, with an overall error rate for expenditure of 4.2%. These figures are very far from those an…

9 May

2023

FR Speech

Discharge 2021 (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow Parliament will therefore decide in plenary whether or not to grant discharge for 2021 to 55 European institutions. It is obviously every year a major political act that Parliament carries out, in conjunction with the Court of Auditors, whose work and rigour I would once again like to commend. These votes will t…

19 Oct

2022

FR Speech

Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2021 (debate)

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Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the Court of Auditors for the quality of its annual report. But, as I already had the opportunity to say in committee last week, this report obviously did not sweep away my many concerns. First, a still significant error rate in the areas of cohesion, the single market, the Eu…

4 May

2022

FR Speech

Discharge 2020 (debate)

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Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, at this May plenary meeting we are closing the discharge process for 2020, which we started last September. And first of all, I want to thank the vast majority of the European institutions for their collaboration and for their work. In general, both the Commission and Parliament itself, as well as th…

14 Feb

2022

FR Speech

Implementation of the Sixth VAT Directive (short presentation)

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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my aim here as rapporteur was to send a strong message in order to put an end to the transitional regime, which is a source of loopholes increasing the VAT gap. I would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs for their cooperation. This report was voted in ECON by a large majority, showing a united front to propose solutions to issues that have bee…

24 Nov

2021

FR Speech

Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2020 (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, I have many concerns about Mr Lehne’s presentation, which I thank. Significant, high error rate in the areas of competitiveness, cohesion and for high-risk expenditure; the balance to be liquidated, which exceeds EUR 300 billion; the absorption capacity of States which remains very problematic and, finally,…

23 Nov

2021

FR Speech

2022 budgetary procedure: joint text (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to the Commission’s initial proposals, we have therefore secured additional investments of almost EUR 500 million for 2022 to achieve our Parliament’s political priorities. I am thinking of research, our youth, SMEs and the green and digital transition, the health dimension, including the global vaccination effort, internal cohesion, ex…

19 Oct

2021

FR Speech

General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2022 - all sections (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the EU budget will be strengthened through the Next Generation EU recovery plan and the financial effort to ensure that recovery in 2022 will be unprecedented. In order to ensure the trust of citizens, but also of entrepreneurs, European money must be spent wisely. We will therefore pay particular attention to respect for the rule of l…