What Niklas spoke about.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, You hear so many rumors in the corridors right now, in this case so many that there might be something to it. One hears, for example, that DG REGIO is to be completely phased in. managed funds are to be the future of regional policy. So it's about the substance of the investments for the regions, the substance of the investments that are supposed to bring the EU closer together. Commissioner McGuinness, I would like you to make a very clear statement today: Will the regions be able to continue to decide on their own funding in the future, or will the announcement only come from Brussels in the future? This would be a brutal blow to the regions and, in particular, to rural areas. I am talking about the abandoned rooms where there is no bus, where there are no jobs, where young families do not see a future. We must promote these rural areas, make them fit for the future, and finally make them more lively. This can only be achieved with well-established, well-used regional funding. We need central support for industry, for European infrastructure, but in addition to regional support. This regional support must be made easier. She must finally put an end to this jungle of support. We need to see a serious reduction in bureaucracy, and we need to let citizens have a say in the transformation on the ground. Cohesion must be there for people, but it must also happen to people. For this, we need a common European commitment. Mr President, if you allow, two more personal sentences: This is my last speech in this mandate, in this House, and it has been a great honour for me to work with all of you, ladies and gentlemen, through times that have been truly difficult, especially for regional policy. But I think we moved a lot for times of crisis, and we put a lot of effort into it. I look forward to continuing to do so with you in the future. It was a great honour, and I hope that honour will continue in the future.

Mr President! A request for rules of procedure: I would like to make a very clear complaint about the fact that, as a parliamentary group, we have proposed and recommended that blue cards and spontaneous interventions be possible in all debates. It was not possible in this debate because the Bureau decided in this way. I find it an outrageous state that really decimates and destroys our culture of debate. Precisely this debate has shown that it would have been necessary to ask very clear questions, where lies were spread, but also interesting debates could have developed, where offers were made by partly other opposing groups, to which one could have reacted. Especially on such an important issue, it is important to have a debate in this House. It's a debate that's more than just people standing in front and talking for a minute. I also do not think it is right that, in order to avoid the whole thing, the President himself should recommend that we simply make a point of order in order to contradict other people. That is why I call on the Bureau to always allow blue cards and spontaneous interventions in the future.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have to say, I'm both annoyed and shocked. I am shocked that we have to talk about cases of corruption because it is disgusting that people put money into their own pockets, which should be used to protect people. But I am also a bit annoyed that we are doing some Spanish election campaigns here in the European House. Because these cases have happened across Europe, and I would have liked it if we were to talk more about them and really roll them up across Europe. But I also say: I am also annoyed by the fact that we are taking an hour here for a specific case in Spain – not wrongly, I would say, not wrongly – but that at the same time we have not once discussed the means we are talking about here in this House; we have €380 billion in funding, of which we have made a good 10% more flexible for CRII+ – these are the means with which these massive deals have happened here. And we have not talked about these measures once in this House. We would do well to think in advance about how we want to use the money, how we want to plan strategically, how we use flexibilisation in a practical way – while preventing corruption in advance – and to discuss this in a reasonable way instead of getting upset about it afterwards. And you don't have to look so hard; Indeed, it would be really beneficial for all political groups to take part in this strategic planning. That's what this house lacks. Flexibility leads us to exactly these problems that we are facing here – they need to be clarified. I agree with the demands of the committee chairmen here, but instead of chasing scandals in a hassle-free manner, please let us make good policy in advance!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have heard many good words, and the rapporteurs have also put forward a good plan, which, if we were to be quite honest, we would not have needed if the electoral reform act had gone through. But unfortunately, the Council shines once again through absence. Nevertheless, I would like to point out two things in particular to the two rapporteurs: The Spika system, i.e. the Spitzenkandidaten system, is a good one. But I think that these top candidates should not only be open to debate in general, but also leave the elections open to citizens. If you do not dare to stand on the ballot for the citizens in Lower Saxony, I think that is already relatively weak, dear friends of the CDU. But I also think, Domènec, Sven: Despite your presentation, you also have to be honest. The European Parliament would have had the opportunity to reject the Council's proposal, and I expect that next time. But to stand here and say, but it is bad that we are now getting a proposal here, while you both, including the whole group, have agreed to this proposal, I think it is a little too short. I would like to see representation in this European Parliament, which is indeed a representation of the people of the European Union, with the courage to represent them in full. This means saying no to the Council when there is a proposal that does not correspond to the systems and ideas we had in advance. That means, I think, but also to say next time, for example, that we can also refer to Article 17 TEU again. Because it actually states that we have a maximum of 18 Commissioners. I believe that as a Parliament, as a representative of the people of Europe, we can also represent interests that are not in the interests of the Member States.

– Madam President! The rapporteur has already summarised on many points why it is good and right that we should address this net-zero industry regulation here. But I have to sprinkle a bit of salt in the soup, because I think that what we do, in the way we do it, is not appropriate to the challenge we actually face. On the one hand, the Commission has made and presented a very precise and strategic choice. Parliament - and this must be seen as self-critical - has softened it quite a bit and put up a bouquet of demands that have simply been scattered without any scientific evidence. I don't think that makes sense if we want to be strategic. But it would not be so bad if the Commission had at least had the edge to present a reasonable, substantial support package in order to finance the whole thing. I believe that this is the question of how we can manage the investments and strengthen the regions, so that the industry not only does not migrate, but, on the contrary, we can emerge as the winners of this competition for who builds the best net-zero technologies. And in this situation, to hear some laughter about how people are happy that money is being cut for this transformation, I think, is absolutely harmful. After all, it is not the climate that suffers from the lack of investment; In the end, it is European society. And we must work towards investing in this European society.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have heard a lot of debates here now about what to do if we have geopolitical power. But the fact is that we need to discuss how we get geopolitical power. The answer to that is quite simple: unity. We need European unity throughout foreign policy and geopolitical questions. Every single country in this Union will fail, will weaken itself if it stands alone. From the smallest but even up to the bigger ones, even France and Germany: they will be irrelevant if we don’t stand together. We need unity. And you, Mr Ríos, said it very precisely in the beginning: we need precise political leadership. So we need one person, one President to be followed. And it is important that if we have one President – Ms von der Leyen – that this person then does not sit at a couch next to the Council President, but instead sits at the table, and that the Council sits in the back. We need a Commission that also sends responsible people that are not there to bore our respective counterparts into surrender, but instead are engaging in political debate. And the big answer to this is to make sure that we get rid of the unanimous vote, and then we can continue the discussion also about, for example, how to speak softly and carry a big stick. I think all of this, the discussion about a European army, it needs to be coming afterwards, it needs to follow, the question of unity needs to prevail. Then we can see where to go forward. Let me say one last thing about the question of Nord Stream that has been mentioned. Since I come from this region, I can tell you that, with a European Union aspect, Nord Stream 2 would have never been built. Therefore there’s a lot of benefits for everybody if European unity prevails.

Mr President, thank you very much, everybody, for participating in this debate. It is a parliament. ‘Parliament’ derives from the word and means talking. I wish that we would also include ‘listening’ to it, because a lot of Members who have spoken are not here anymore to listen, actually, to responses. However, I’ll still try to sum it up a little bit. The liberal democracy – I think this is the part where we all agree – is in danger from outside and from the inside. It’s changing and we need to improve democracy in order to make sure that it’s still working. When people call for representative democracy to have showed the best experience in the past, that might be true, but we still need to understand that things need to change in order to conserve what we want to keep precious. One of the main things I think the press and media and everybody is saying is that people are losing trust in democracy and losing trust in politicians, and so on. This is right, but the question is: how do we bring trust back? You don’t bring trust back by just saying, ‘Give it to me’, but you have to trust others in order to be trusted. Trusting citizens means giving them the possibility to decide, giving them tangible things to do with their own power, with their own voice. We can do that. Commissioner, you know about my ideas about using the cohesion funding for exactly that: to give citizens the power to decide where to use funding in order to empower them and to gain trust in democracy. But we should also do it when it comes to legislation. That’s why we are seeing the benefit of including partial measures of direct democracy into our representative democracy. Let me make sure that we’re not talking about referenda after referenda for everything. I think this is not wise, but to get the people in Agoras in a meaningful discussion – we have shown it in Ireland, we have shown it during the Conference on the Future of Europe that this works. It’s really good to build up trust, to make citizens feel noticed and make sure that they get involved in the political process. One last problem I want to mention here – and this goes to the Presidency, sorry, but I have to say, if we’re discussing democracy and we’re not allowing for blue cards in a various manner, then there’s something very badly wrong with a parliament that does not listen. So please, the Presidency of this House should make sure that blue cards are always available and that time has been taken seriously in account that blue cards can also be used.

Mr President, Commissioner, dear Alin, my dearest co-rapporteur on this, European society is changing. My grandma was born in a village. She received her education there. She bore her children there. Her whole life was in this village. She almost never left it. She died there in the end. And that’s a few decades ago. My mom was the first one of the family to fly to Paris on a plane that you could still smoke on. And when she announced that she would go and live in another city almost 100 km away – 88, to be quite frank – the whole town said she’s crazy. I mean this is insane, so far away. And now I have been to four countries in the past week, in a night train – non-smoking, by the way – but this is completely normal now. Nowadays, young people tend to live much faster lives in different ages, different whereabouts in Europe. The Internet allows us to connect and exchange ideas but also a lot of fake news. And nobody is bound anymore to one location to live in for the rest of the life, especially young people. They grow up in one town, get their education in another, vocational training in the next, Erasmus in between, and then find their love of their life and move, I don’t know, to another country to live there. Democracy did not adapt to these changes. We still have a democratic system in which if you’re interested in your local politics, you’re required to be there for five years, commit yourself to the service and do that. But that’s really hard to do, especially for young people if they don’t even know what party they are attending tonight. Right? So they don’t know where they will be in the next five years. So we need to find ways to adapt to it. Also, our European parliaments – I’m not talking about this one, I’m talking about all the national ones – they have sometimes less European exchange than a Call of Duty lobby. And European law has been made commonly, but still people are not talking to each other when they’re legislators. At the same time, we are having Erasmus European solidarity, all these ways, creative Europe, to bring Europeans together, to create European exchanges, understandings and so on. And at the same time, when citizens move to a different country, their new home treats them as foreigners and makes it really hard to be somewhere: they’re not allowed to vote, they don’t get the easy access to social rights, and it’s really, really hard. We try to address all of this in this report. First of all, for the democratic question, we had the idea to increase democracy, to extend it, not to exchange representative democracy, because it’s shown its value in the past, but to improve it by bringing it into fast-paced times, by giving citizens the possibility to give their ideas to have this exchange. And we know that it works because we use this very similar motive during the Conference on the Future of Europe. Money cannot be a reason for less democracy, I have to say. So this is not a good reason. I also have to say, especially to the Commission, the proposal to include citizens in certain ways, in very precise and detailed questions, I think is the wrong extent because it’s endangering democracy. In the end, it will feed into the fact that they can’t really do anything about it. They have to really get into the details of it and, in the end, maybe their results are not being treated respectfully. So we need to change that. Second point, we have talked about the parliaments and how we can bring them into exchange, how we can make sure that this globalisation, the Europeanisation of our legislation, is getting together. And third, we have clearly defined what the European citizenship means and that means also an easier life through a common European administration and also more voting rights for citizens throughout Europe. This is a path forward – an idea to bring our democracy to the 21st century. And I thank very much our shadows that we worked so closely together with.

Madam President, it is necessary to ensure that no citizen, whether he lives at the city, village or in a remote territory, is left behind. Alternative fuel systems will only be effective when a specific person can move freely within the whole territory of the European Union and to be sure about to be able to use the alternative fuels infrastructure at any time of the whole trip. This means immediate action at the full—fledged action. The European regions be they small or big, be they rural or urban, or be they in the centre of Europe or in the outermost regions. In order to achieve a well—functioning network, we should look even wider than the European Union and include third countries into the cooperation, especially those candidates for the Union membership. It is not only the density of the network of alternative fuels, but is also important that the adaptation of the network is specific to the specific needs of the people. So it needs to be inclusive and accessible for all people, especially those with disabilities or reduced mobility. Before approving investment, it is therefore necessary to ensure that these systems are being developed in order to meet the needs and capacities of all people, because only an inclusive system can ensure faster results towards climate neutrality.

Well, I believe that the streamlining of the procedure would be helpful, but I don’t think that a simple increase of the funds is enough, because honestly, we don’t know when a catastrophe will come. We don’t know if it is at the beginning or at the end of the MFF. We don’t know in which size it will come for the future. I think what we need is an insurance scheme in which all Member States make sure that they pay in when catastrophes come, so that it is available all the time for all the region when it is needed. But bureaucracy will still be need to be reduced, and not just in the line of finances, but also in the rebuilding, meaning that we need to ensure that the regions at hand have it easier to access funding, have it easier to spend the money, and to get into building up and building up resistance instead of building up the same scheme over and over. Thank you for your question.

Madam President, First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the families and relatives who have lost people and relatives who have lost their livelihood. This catastrophe sadly reminds us once again that we are in the midst of a climate catastrophe. And I think we must finally learn from it. We must draw conclusions from this that are more than simply a denial that the climate catastrophe is not to blame or that it does not exist or the like. So what can we learn? Firstly, to the Commission: No cent from Europe can be put into the climate catastrophe – no cent can go into more CO2 emissions, into more endangerment of the environment. Secondly: The Commission must present a map that clearly shows which regions are particularly vulnerable to disasters, so that we can start building something truly resilient and transforming it so that the next disaster does not become so bad and does not cost so many lives. Thirdly: We need to take care of the restructuring of the Solidarity Fund. The Solidarity Fund is a good idea, but it does not work to the extent that we need it. It is too small, too cumbersome, too bureaucratic and simply not suitable to counter the threats of the future, the climate crisis. Denial, Mr. Dorfmann, is of no use here. We must rise to the challenge, also in the image of the victims of these disasters, in order to do justice to them and prevent others. (The speaker agreed to respond to a question about the "blue card" procedure.)

Madam President, dear colleagues, I don’t need to repeat what you said. I think the goal is clear. We want cohesion throughout Europe and that is of utmost importance. But the question I have is whether this is the right tool, if state aid really is the right tool to achieve it. Because the problem that we have throughout Europe is we have very rich Member States and we have very poor Member States. The problem lies in that even if we increase the limits for state aid possibilities, it does not mean that the Member States have the money and the funding to help their companies with state aid. So we see that the majority of requests for state aid come, of course, from the richest Member States who don’t necessarily need to support their companies in such a way. So my question is whether we cannot think of a better tool to organise state aid in a fair way so that not everybody gets the same possibility, but actually gets the possibility to invest into it, and that we have a common European approach to it, to fund and to support these Member States that definitely need or these companies and these regions that need the support, but not based upon the income of their national Member State, but based on European solidarity. That is the way how we did cohesion policy in the past, and that is the way that we should extend European cohesion policy in the future in order to bring cohesion to Europe and a real cohesion.

Madam President, well first of all, it’s a pity that the Council is not here, because the Member States are the ones that have agreed to the Paris Agreement and that are legally bound to take action. Nonetheless, we need to focus on what we as the EU can do. And sorry for you being the only Commissioner here, but the Commission is not doing enough. Why do we not use the power of the EU for the common agricultural policy to have an agriculture policy that is protecting the climate and the biodiversity? Why do you keep speaking about it but are not acting? Why do we not use the power of the EU with the biggest single market to use trading agreements for the better, for the climate and for biodiversity? Why, again, is the Commission not acting? We hear too much and we see too little. And honestly, this is just frustrating for me, for a whole generation, because we focus on the future. The question of the climate change is the question of how a society will live in future. The question of biodiversity is if we will live in future, and the current generation in power is just doing everything to ignore the point, and we as a future generation get anxiety of it and have a fear of the future. And that is on your back. Sorry to say that to all of you.

Mr President! You know, when Cristiano Ronaldo scores a goal, he makes his famous goal cheer: ‘SIUUU!’ If I look at this, the European Year of Youth, then I get a maximum of a small ‘siu’. Because at the end of the day, we've missed too much, so much isn't on it. I always find it a pity that you have to say: I cannot say anything about this because the competent Commissioner is not there. We have a topic here that simply plays a role in all areas and that is simply too often not answered. The European Year of Youth has not only been last year, it is every year, and we must take that seriously. Therefore, my question: What are we really doing to involve young people in the political decision-making process in Europe? Electoral age 16 was mentioned. We have this as an electoral act. We have the question of the European Year of Youth and the European Conference on the Future of Europe. Youth Check. We have the question of how we can make a standing committee for young people. All this is not tackled. Not only do we need to have a say, but we also need the co-decision of young people, because they decide the future of this continent. So, Commissioner, what steps can we expect you to take?

Mr President! First of all, I would like to agree with Mr Karas's words. We must not be able to lose the connection to future technologies in the end, but must really move Europe forward. Above all, however, this also applies to cutting-edge technology, and we need to invest in research and investment here. But what I've noticed in all these debates: When we talk about jobs, it's all about the workers and not just the production of jobs. This means that we need jobs in the sense of employees. I believe that we must above all make sure that more and more companies also come into the responsibility of employees, so that these companies also make decisions in the sense of the employees and not only in the sense of higher dividend payouts. I believe that this can be achieved by building a structure in which all those who are employed in the company can really be involved. Then we also have a future in view that can make it possible for the employees, that the employees really benefit from their job, to get higher wages, shorter working hours and not only work for higher dividends. Last point: We must not only drive this development in the strong regions, but we must make sure that the whole of Europe really grows together more regionally, that these jobs are created throughout Europe, that cutting-edge technology is also possible where industry does not yet exist. This is crucial for a more European approach to industrial and economic development.

Madam President, IRIS will give Europe a seat at the table on the new space age. We saw this constellation as an opportunity to prepare the European space industry for its new challenges. And IRIS will not only provide a secure internet connection, but will also establish a competitive space industry, ensuring Europe’s independent access to space. The significance of this can be seen every day in Ukraine. The space sector requires investment just as much as it requires a change of policy that we are about to make. We want to see creative minds competing to create the smartest services, superb satellites and the most revolutionary rockets the world has ever seen. The space-based internet provided by IRIS will eliminate any coverage gaps and bring internet access even to rural and the remotest areas all over Europe. This will drive the European economy. But this internet must also be affordable to all citizens. So, colleagues, why did you not support the Green amendment that would have ensured that this internet connection would have cost not more than 10 euros per month? However, my colleagues, I must also praise you very much because not only have you adopted, but even embraced my proposals for sustainability criteria, which shows that you truly have a revolution in space in mind. These sustainability criteria are not only essential to continue engaging in space, but they are the first step for an international and for European space law and even lead towards a revision of international space legislation as a whole. In this sense, IRIS2 truly is revolutionary.

Madam President, you had made the decision to take the oral amendment to a vote. The opposition has been expressed after the decision of the President has been made. Therefore, I request that the decision stands as it has been proposed to Parliament and, therefore, we vote on the amendment as proposed by the colleague.

Mr President, we already had a report about video games from the CULT Committee, which focused on the benefits, on the creativity, on the jobs that we have, on the big support that we want to send the sector. This report focused very much on the importance of the protection of consumers, and that is very, very important. On the one hand, it’s about online communities, to fight against sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, mobbing of each sort. And we can use filters for that, but I think it’s not really worth it, it’s something about a change of mind, change of community, where we need to approach. On the other hand, we have the big importance of corporate ideas. They have models of games where they try to improve the focus on loot boxes, where they try to make it as opaque as possible when it comes to in-game currencies and weird monetisation. So some developers have become really more like shell players with better graphics and that is gambling. Gambling is dangerous and we need to avoid gambling, especially when it comes to minors. Therefore, dear Commissioner, as many have said before me, ban all loot boxes, ban all gambling and ban everything that has gambling-like mechanics because it is dangerous for our citizens.

Dear Mr Gallée! Compared to the hoopoe, there is already a difference: The hoopoe is protected in the special year. That's why I'd be interested in: We currently have the situation that a lot of young people have mental problems, that a lot of young people are struggling with fears of the future – climate change, a war. What measures of the Commission would you consider important in order to really support people? What can the European Commission really do to support the mental health of young people and to ensure that no one in Europe thinks about violence against themselves, about suicide, and that we really get back to a positive future?

Mr President, for far too long politicians from past generations have seen video games as an irrelevant field, as a weird hobby for freaks, nerds and geeks that needs little to no attention or support from politics. Well, scrap all of this. This time is over. The gaming industry is already bigger than Hollywood, with a revenue of over EUR 23 billion each year. Half of all Europeans consider themselves to be gamers of some sort. So let it be known that a new generation of politicians have taken this topic very serious and that actual gamers sit at the negotiation table. Thankfully we didn’t start a console war, but instead brought together the interests of all gamers, be they the PCMR consoles or even mobile, we brought all of them together. The video game sector brings massive benefits for our whole society. Video games are great for educational diversity, bringing new learning methods to fascinate students for science, history and much more. Video games allow for inclusive participation in culture, education and in our whole society, and Europe must strengthen the industry, especially individuals and SMEs. It creates jobs and opportunities, bringing together artistic techniques and innovative technologies. But we also need to fight for a good gaming experience for all. That means inclusion, protection of minors and vulnerable groups. And in this light it is important that we clearly fight against loot boxes. The current use of loot boxes creates gaming addictions, threatening children, people with addiction problems, creating a harmful environment, and it’s just bad for the gaming experience as a whole. With this report we will start to outlaw the use of loot boxes. Today is the start of a new era, an era in which we value the European gaming sector and start harnessing the multiple benefits that video games provide for our society. It’s a very good start.

Mr President, I want to use the time because there’s another imminent problem that we need to talk about when we’re talking about space debris, and that is, of course, anti—satellite missile testing. We know that last year the Russians tested missiles in order to destroy their own satellites. We know that the Chinese and the Americans have done the same. And we know that this is very dangerous for peace in outer space, but also for the question of the debris, of space traffic management, as previous speakers have mentioned. Therefore, I want to ask the Commission what it plans to do about this situation. We have the proposal from Vice President Kamala Harris for a memorandum of understanding on anti—satellite missile tests. We should now support this initiative and bring it to the international stage to make sure that we never again use anti—satellite missiles, in order to not destroy or threaten our space—based infrastructure. Can the Commission please comment on whether it wants to support the initiative and be a driving force in this question for the international stage?

Mr President, while space might seem infinite, the usable space in Earth’s proximity is not. In the past decades, we only had a few satellites in orbit, but now we add several hundred new satellites every year. This extensive use of outer space means more possibilities to benefit all humans on Earth. But it also means that this increase of objects – be it functional satellites or useless trash – increases the threat of collision. We and not just Europeans, but humanity as a whole needs to avoid this by all means. Any collision can result in a cascading destruction known as the Kessler Syndrome. The implication of this is that all our space—based infrastructure would be destroyed, and the worldwide society would fall back to the technological status of the 1970s. All supply chains would be heavily interrupted because ships cannot navigate without GPS and Galileo. Worldwide communication would be cut, and this would interrupt everything from football game transmissions to renewable energy production, and the fight against climate change would be unwinnable without data from Copernicus. This is what’s at stake. And because the stakes are so high, I am thankful that finally, Parliament and Commission see the imminent need to build up a system for space traffic management. I would have liked to see this happen much earlier because we have to do so much more and we have to be so much faster. We need binding sustainability standards for all missions. These should be ‘leave no trace behind’, reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, no light pollution, and active debris removal. I have been pushing the Commission as well as the Member States. And to let you know, I will continue to do so to forge European space law, one common comprehensive European law to regulate all space activities in all fields necessary, so that Europe extends its activities in space to bring more benefits to all Europeans and all humans, but that’s also sustainable. And I’m advocating for an international space law because we have to treat outer space for what it is – not a junkyard, not a playground for billionaires, not the Wild West, but a common heritage of all mankind.

Mr President, the first victim in war is the truth – you all know the saying. But I would say that if you want to start a war, you first have to kill the truth. Putin has been doing this for decades now – and also in Europe, like supporting La Lega, Rassemblement National, FPÖ and the AfD. By the way, those colleagues all fled this debate like the Russians flee from the Ukrainian forces. But also, the biggest target group for Russia is in Russia. Russians have been brainwashed for ages, have been fed that the world hates them, that only Putin can save them, that every war is justified for Russia to free the world from ... from what? From freedom? From liberty? This we must tackle urgently, and this means we need to be active also in Russia. Please Commissioner, we cannot expect old people to go to the internet, get a VPN and get the information themselves. We have to address them through the radio, through TV, and we have to make sure that they are informed with the truth and that they know one thing – we are not the enemies of the Russian people. The enemies of the Russian people, the thieves of Russian money, the murders of Russian sons and husbands ... sit in the Kremlin!

Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner, and thank you all, for this very interesting debate. I really liked the point on change of perspective – how can we bring people back to these areas? I think a lot of young families actually want to go back because I’ve talked to a lot of them and they say ‘I would like to come back, but I don’t have what I need. I don’t have a kindergarten for my children a school or something like this.’ So we know what people need. They need jobs. They need infrastructure like social infrastructure, kindergarten, schools. They need mobility apart from cars, like trains, buses, etc. They need a culture and possibilities to do something. They sometimes just need a fucking pub, you know, to do something and relax a little bit. I think this is the theory, and we now need to go to the practice. The practice means that every region is different and that we need to listen to the people and ask them, what do you need in your region? We have instruments for that, and that instrument is called CLLD. We have brought CLLD to the attention of the cohesion instruments like ESF and ERDF, but they are rarely used. So my question to the Commission is, why are the Member States not using this tool that we offered them? Why do the Member States not include that in their policy? And the other question that I have is, how can we bring rural development together with the ERDF, together with the ESF? Because there is economy, there is a social infrastructure in rural areas and it is needed to be improved. So please use this tool also in the future cohesion policy.

Madam President, just before the summer break, the Commission proposed to us yet another emergency measure to tackle the consequences of the terrible war in Ukraine. It is, though, the fifth time within two years to finance an emergency tool out of the funds of EU regional development. During the pandemic, we agreed upon more support for regions, citizens and the economies, as well as healthcare infrastructure through the Corona Response Investment Initiative, or CRII, then followed up with CRII+. This year we needed urgent help for regions, as regards to the support of refugees fleeing from the Russian aggression in Ukraine. We called it CARE, then another one CARE+. And now we are talking about FAST-CARE. All these responses have shown that cohesion policy is able to help citizens in the long term but also, if need be, can react swift and in order to mitigate the impact of imminent crisis. However, we must take our responsibility as parliamentarians very serious and check very carefully if an emergency procedure is always justified. It cannot become the new modus operandi for the EU’s policy to use emergency procedure over and over again. Because what’s next? What about the daily challenges and future ones, if we do not stick to the strategic goals of our policies and renounce resilience and preparedness? Cohesion policy is of utmost importance for the whole European Union. It is the main investment tool to help us eradicate social and territorial inequalities. Cohesion policy means solidarity within and amongst regions. Cohesion policy is not just a problem solver but a tool for democracy and we need that more than ever. We cannot and should not cut it whenever a crisis arises. Instead, we must find other solutions. The Commission must find different sources of funding. Tomorrow, we will vote on FAST-CARE – the proposed urgent procedure gave the REGI committee a lot of headaches, to be honest, because of the matters of the principle that I already mentioned. We did take our time to look into the details of the proposal and to evaluate the substance of it. And this is our constitutional duty as co-legislators. FAST-CARE now allows flexibility in terms of transfer between funds and regions, support for not only Ukrainians but also third-country refugees, allows for more funding money for regions due to 100% subsidies and some more. And the Commission has taken up on our call for direct funding for cities and municipalities that we express as the committee in various reports. Now, 30% of the money for helping with refugees will be spent by local actors. This is a good start, but FAST-CARE also allows for phasing of delayed projects in the current funding period. It is good to save this project and make sure that these resources already spent don’t go to waste. But it may include projects like construction of regional airports which are not eligible at all anymore and this is for good reason. All these measures are needed and, content wise, we support most of this without any hesitation. But all these measures simply mean cuts to the cohesion budget and do jeopardise the idea being behind cohesion policy, because it is a policy that not only has a real impact when it is implemented in a long-term approach by preparatory instruments and strategically considers all regions of Europe. For emergency measures, fresh money is needed. We can’t tackle them only by shifting the existing money from A to B. We need a more flexible MFF and not only a flexibilisation on an existing regulation. You know, I am a young European, I was involved in the Conference on the Future of Europe process as well as the internal EP process and, of course, I am definitely in favour of modifying EU rules that are clearly outdated. But we exceptionally must take all fashion in one main regard when it comes to EU cohesion policy. We need to move back to the root of it as a strategic investment to secure overall harmonious development for all cities and regions in Europe in the long term. With emergency measures like FAST-CARE we risk to undermine our common goals, we risk to leave regions behind and we risk European democracies as a whole. Because the political shift in Europe arises, particularly from regions and citizens that do not feel heard and seen, that are left behind. And this is what we contact with a holistic and strategic approach from cohesion policy. And if we should focus on that, we would not even have to invest in most emergency measures because we would support regions in becoming resilient for future challenges, be it a pandemic in healthcare systems, be it an economic crash, or the environmental crisis ahead. We need commitment from the Member States, we need commitment from the Commission – for the Commission to act in solidarity. So I call for the Commission that if you should propose another emergency measure, I would ask you to provide also a plan on how to solve the issues in the long run, how to fade out from the emergency to regular legislation and how to finance them without dropping out of our future. Thank you very much and I am looking forward for support for this FAST-CARE proposal.