What Eugen spoke about.

18

Jan

2023

SK Speech

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Protection of the EU’s financial interests - combating fraud - annual report 2021 (debate)

Madam President. If we want to protect European money effectively, we need to improve a lot of things. I'm going to mention two that are less talked about than they deserve. Firstly, transparency. Let's start publishing all contracts with public administration in the Union, as Slovakia, for example, does. At the same time, we also need to control who benefits from public contracts as the beneficia…

16

Jan

2023

SK Speech

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30th Anniversary of the Single Market (debate)

Mr President. The Single Market has boosted economic growth in the European Union. However, the impact of the Single Market on people’s lives goes far beyond the economy. The single market then helps maintain peace, improves relations between countries, improves freedom and tolerance, protects law and democracy. Completing the single market would make many of today's problems much easier to solve …

12

Dec

2022

SK Speech

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A long-term vision for the EU's rural areas (debate)

Madam President, the report on the vision for the Union's rural areas by 2040 did not please me. Nor does it propose appropriate solutions and, in particular, does it have properly identified reasons why rural areas are lagging behind. Trying to put young people in unproductive jobs in rural areas cannot be part of the strategy. Why do we want to sacrifice them? The OECD study gives us clear recom…

24

Nov

2022

SK Speech

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Establishing the Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030 (debate)

Madam President, it is undoubtedly good that we are setting ourselves targets for digitalisation. Unfortunately, we don't have them well-chosen. They do not measure the results for the citizen. For example, the objective of making key public services available online. It is not enough that the service is available online, because the online service can be done in such a way that citizens lose more…

21

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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Borrowing strategy to finance NextGenerationEU (debate)

Madam President, while the borrowing strategy has been conducted without major difficulties, new European debt also brings many hazards into the future which the report overlooks: higher inflation, increased indebtedness of Member States and resistance of Member States to fiscal consolidation and structural reforms. I think it is a mistake that the Commission does not set fiscal consolidation as t…

18

Oct

2022

SK Speech

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General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2023 - all sections (debate)

Mr President, the solution to today's energy and inflation crisis should not be taboo or austerity in the Union budget. Even a citizen in difficult times cannot solve his problems without saving in his budget. Therefore, part of the resources needed to cope with the crisis should be redeployed as a matter of priority from inefficient funds where we help the vulnerable in a targeted way. There is s…

14

Sep

2022

SK Speech

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Economic, social and territorial cohesion in the EU: the 8th Cohesion Report - EU border regions: living labs of European integration (debate)

Madam President, the presenters of the material call on the Commission to consider creating an exception in the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact for public expenditure on cohesion policy. But black is simply black, white is white, deficit is deficit and debt is debt. Excluding cohesion policy expenditure from the deficit will not lead to a lower spirit at the end of the day. This only increa…

6

Jul

2022

SK Speech

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Protection of the EU’s financial interests – combating fraud – annual report 2020 (debate)

Madam President, I will try to remember it, thank you for the floor. I welcome the European Parliament's call in this report for the Commission to evaluate the efficiency of the budget for the years 14 to 20 in order to learn lessons from the results achieved with European money in the past when drawing up future budgets. However, the report lacks the idea that the zero condition for evaluating ef…

4

Jul

2022

SK Speech

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Adoption by Croatia of the euro on 1 January 2023 (debate)

Mr President, Croatia is joining the Eurozone in very tense times of record inflation and great uncertainty. Slovakia, where I came from, which introduced the common currency in 2009 during the financial crisis, experienced something similar. We know from experience that the introduction of the euro in itself does not, in principle, make it more expensive and may be more advantageous for a small c…

22

Jun

2022

SK Speech

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This is Europe - Debate with the Prime Minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenković (debate)

Madam President, Croatia will become the twentieth member of the euro area next year, and this is an opportunity not only to wish Croatia success, but also to say a few words about the euro area, which was intended as a club of countries with low debt, sound public finances that will share a stable currency. But with the advent of the financial crisis, this paradigm has changed to a great extent. …

7

Jun

2022

SK Speech

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Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System - Social Climate Fund - Carbon border adjustment mechanism - Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System for aviation - Notification under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) (joint debate – Fit for 55 (part 1))

Madam President, it is a scientific consensus, and therefore a great responsibility of scientists, that humanity cannot afford to slow down in stopping global warming. The task of politicians is to achieve an agreed halt to warming with the least possible negative impact on people's living standards. We must therefore choose the most efficient methods, that is, those that reduce the production of …

18

May

2022

SK Speech

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Minimum level of taxation for multinational groups (debate)

Madam President, at the beginning of this initiative, there was a correct attempt to address the problem of economic activity escaping from the European Union. And this happens for two reasons or two forms. On the one hand, it is an escape of taxation of economic activity to tax havens, and on the other hand, it is an escape of economic activity due to a worse business environment. We are now tryi…

4

May

2022

SK Speech

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Competition policy – annual report 2021 (debate)

Mr President. Healthy competition is part of the European Union's golden treasure. It is important that the Commission and the states, i.e. politicians, fight against abuses of dominant position, against cartels. But sometimes we forget that it is we, the politicians, who limit competition in a systemic way. As an example, I can cite various systemic restrictions on trade in services, some subsidi…

4

May

2022

SK Speech

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Discharge 2020 (debate)

Madam President. At a time of high, rising inflation, at a time of war, at a time of great kovid problems and others, it is even more important than usual to spend taxpayers' money efficiently. The Court has long drawn attention to problem areas in the budget, such as cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy. For example, the Court found that the one hundred billion euros spent between 2…

7

Apr

2022

SK Speech

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Right to repair (debate)

Madam President, the petitioners wanted to help the environment with these proposals, and that is a good goal. However, when extending the lifespan of products, we should not only take into account that if old products have a longer lifespan, we will not harm the environment by producing new products. We should also take into account that, according to expert studies, repaired old products often d…

23

Mar

2022

SK Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, one of the consequences of the Russian aggression is also related to the environment. After this experience with Russia, armament spending in the world will be higher than before. We know from expert studies that higher spending on armaments is associated with higher greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, we are in a situation where the developed world has high public debts. …

15

Feb

2022

SK Speech

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Tackling non-tariff and non-tax barriers in the single market (debate)

. Mr President, I have long argued that if we want to be successful as a country and as a union, we must open ourselves up to competition, not protect ourselves from it. The free movement of goods works well in the Union, but if I wanted my house to be designed, for example, by an Estonian architect, it is no longer without obstacles. Indeed, the free market for services still has many restriction…

19

Jan

2022

SK Speech

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Digital Services Act (continuation of debate)

Mr President, I agree that we should uphold the principle: What is not prohibited offline should not be prohibited online. With the Digital Services Regulation, we, but in my view, are at risk of creating many new rules that have a cost and not achieving an adequate improvement. We also risk doing this because we do not do a good cost-benefit analysis in advance, we do not rely on expert sources. …

14

Dec

2021

SK Speech

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Digital Markets Act (debate)

Madam President, the main drawback of the present Digital Market Act is the very definition of a gatekeeper. The size of the platform and the number of users do not in themselves demonstrate that a market failure is taking place. We should stick to the best practices defined in the competition legislation, i.e. choose criteria that show whether a market failure is actually occurring. In parallel w…

22

Nov

2021

SK Speech

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A pharmaceutical strategy for Europe (debate)

Madam President, in every crisis there are voices calling for attempts to resolve crisis situations with isolationism and protectionism. The same proposals appear in the public debate also now in the context of the Covid-19 crisis. For example, this report on the EU pharmaceutical strategy proposes the relocation of the production of medicines to Europe, as well as the promotion of medicines made …

10

Nov

2021

SK Speech

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The European Education Area: a shared holistic approach (debate)

Mr President. In the European Union, states finance primary and, in part, secondary education with public money. It is often the case that graduates move from poorer to richer countries, which in turn send them billions of euros through complicated EU funds. For example, 17 percent of students leave Slovakia to go to foreign universities. In 2010, it was 14 percent, so the problem is getting bigge…

21

Oct

2021

SK Speech

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Insurance of motor vehicles (debate)

Mr President, I would like to thank and congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Charanzova, for the quality of the work she has done. This is also the result, which I strongly support. The new rules on compulsory contractual insurance will bring a number of changes, but also an important role for Member States. When a citizen living, for example, in Slovakia or another Member State bought a vehicle, for …

19

Oct

2021

SK Speech

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

. – Madam President, I consider the main problem of the European budget to be its focus on outputs rather than results. The European Court of Auditors has raised a warning finger over, for example, the common agricultural policy, for which it recommends the development of reliable indicators assessing its impact. The flagship InvestEU Investment Fund evaluates some of its achievements according to…

6

Oct

2021

SK Speech

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Banking Union - annual report 2020 (debate)

Since the financial crisis, the institutions of the Banking Union have undergone reforms improving its stability and resilience. However, under the current conditions, the proposal to establish a common guarantee for bank deposits would still, in my view, constitute a moral hazard by passing on potential costs from one group of euro area members to another. To date, we have not exhausted the possi…

6

Oct

2021

SK Speech

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Reforming the EU policy on harmful tax practices (including the reform of the Code of Conduct Group) (debate)

Mr President, combating tax fraud and tax evasion is an interest shared by all Member States. However, I find it wrong to confuse this interest with the harmonisation of direct taxes, which is the interest of only one group of Member States, which would take away the competitive advantage of the other group of Member States and limit tax competition. The United States Congress has more powers in t…