What Nils spoke about.

16

Jun

2026

EN Speech

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Russia’s unacceptable provocative actions and drone incursions into Romania, the Baltic states and Finland (debate)

Mr President, last week, in Latvia, for the first time, a NATO fighter jet shot down a drone crossing in from Russia. This is exactly what we need: our Union's borders are being defended militarily. Just as much, we must protect the people who live on those borders socially and economically. For example, in Latgale, on the EU's eastern border, tourism businesses now report mass cancellations. Hund…

11

Mar

2026

EN Speech

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Guidelines for the 2027 budget - Section III (A10-0044/2026 - Nils Ušakovs) (vote)

Madam President, based on Rule 206(4), I request that the vote on the 2027 budget guidelines be adjourned in order to provide more time for the political groups to agree on the final text.

10

Mar

2026

EN Speech

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Guidelines for the 2027 budget - Section III (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner Serafin, Presidency, colleagues, it is a privilege to present today the guidelines for the 2027 European Union budget – a document that both marks an end and a beginning. An end because 2027 will be the final year of the current multiannual financial framework, and a beginning because the way we manage this final budget will determine the credibility with which the Union…

25

Nov

2025

EN Speech

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Increasing the efficiency of the EU guarantee under the InvestEU Regulation and simplifying reporting requirements (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, Colleagues, the impact of this file is very concrete. InvestEU is the EU's main tool to help turn good ideas into real projects: a school that wants to renovate its building, a small company that needs a loan to expand, a town that wants to invest in new buses. I support strengthening the EU guarantee and adding EUR 200 million on top of the EUR 1 billion proposed by…

25

Nov

2025

EN Speech

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2026 budgetary procedure: joint text (debate)

Mr President, colleagues, first let me sincerely thank our rapporteurs, Andrzej Halicki and Matjaž Nemec, as well as our fellow shadow rapporteurs and their teams for the hard work that led to this agreement on the 2026 budget, which wasn't finalised until 2 a.m. I would also like to thank Commissioner Piotr Serafin and the Danish Presidency for the result. After tough negotiations, we secured a b…

21

Oct

2025

EN Speech

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General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2026 – all sections (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, colleagues, the 2026 EU budget marks key changes. It finally recognises the eastern flank for what it is: a strategic necessity. This is not just a win for eastern border Member States like my home country, Latvia; it is the only viable path for the stability and development of the entire Union. Let us be clear: a secure and prosperous eastern flank is a se…

17

Jun

2025

EN Speech

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Implementation report on the Recovery and Resilience Facility (debate)

Madam President, dear colleagues, when the COVID crisis struck Europe, the response was often shaky, leading to decisions that proved controversial or simply wrong. But out of that chaos emerged something truly new that seemed to be even revolutionary: that was the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Europe abandoned its playbook on austerity; it chose to borrow money together to help its Members to…

8

May

2025

LV Speech

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80 years after the end of World War II - freedom, democracy and security as the heritage of Europe (debate)

Mr President, Dear colleagues, These days, people across Europe celebrate the victory over Nazism, commemorate the soldiers of the anti-Hitler coalition, the participants of the resistance, the guerrillas, everyone who fought and fell, fighting against this absolute evil. The European Union was created precisely as a result of this victory, and everything that is good in Europe is thanks to the so…

6

May

2025

EN Speech

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Discharge 2023 (joint debate)

Madam President, access to European Union funding for large-scale transport projects usually boosts mobility and economic development, but not in the case of my home country, Latvia. I will give you some illustration. Currently, electric trains form the backbone of domestic passenger rail transport. However, the state of the electrified rail infrastructure is so poor that probably in the next 5 to…

6

May

2025

EN Speech

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A revamped long-term budget for the Union in a changing world (debate)

Mr President, after the United Kingdom left the European Union, a special support tool, the Brexit Adjustment Reserve, was created under the current MFF. It has provided assistance to municipalities along the western border of the Union, with total funding of EUR 5 billion. Recently, members of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets visited the city of Balvi in Latvia, Latgale region, a re…

1

Apr

2025

EN Speech

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Safeguarding the access to democratic media, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (debate)

Mr President, distinguished Commissioner, dear colleagues, apart from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, there are thousands of independent media outlets operating across the European Union in the Russian language. This means they are owned by EU citizens, they employ EU citizens and they produce content for Europeans, but they do so in Russian and they have no connection to Kremlin. The best way to…

27

Nov

2024

EN Speech

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Presentation by the President-elect of the Commission of the College of Commissioners and its programme (debate)

Madam President, the previous mandate of the European Parliament and the Commission began with Brexit, and municipalities located at the western border of the European Union were particularly affected by the departure of the United Kingdom As a result, a special financial instrument was established, providing up to EUR 5 billion in support for these municipalities. This mandate starts with the con…

26

Nov

2024

EN Speech

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2025 budgetary procedure: Joint text (debate)

Madam President, for the first time the European Union has a budget of EUR 200 billion, and it is an important increase in the Union's financial capacity. However, the European Union budget remains relatively small. A budget of EUR €200 billion is less than the budget of Denmark, and that means that we need to be clear with the priorities when we vote for the budget. Despite the pressure of repayi…

22

Oct

2024

EN Speech

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

Mr President, dear colleagues, I will use this opportunity to talk about European administration. The recent incident at Strasbourg train station after the last plenary – which left thousands of employees stranded – has once again highlighted the inefficiency and, at the same time, the financial burden of the so-called 'travelling circus' that the European institutions endure every month. The annu…

9

Oct

2024

EN Speech

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Ensuring sustainable, decent and affordable housing in Europe - encouraging investment, private property and public housing programmes (debate)

Mr President, dear colleagues, in Latvia, especially in the border region of Latgale, there are hundreds of apartment buildings that have had no central heating for the last three decades. This was cut off during the energy crisis of the 1990s after Latvia regained its independence. As a result, each room has a separate coal‑burning stove, with numerous pipes sticking out of every single apartment…

13

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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Financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union (recast) (debate)

Madam President, we have made significant efforts towards the revision of the Financial Regulation and achieved decent results in our fight to make the spending of European money more transparent, honest and effective. Still, we will be facing a number of challenges ahead. The Financial Regulation needs further improvement, as well as the way European money is spent. A main concern in the future w…

13

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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Financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union (recast) (debate)

Mr President, dear Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since the beginning of this parliamentary mandate, we have been preparing the work on this file and eagerly awaited this moment to finally adopt a revised Financial Regulation. Let me be clear: this revision was long overdue. It is remarkable that it took so much time. Parliament was united and ready from the very beginning. The multiannual fi…

13

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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Guidelines for the 2025 Budget - Section III (debate)

Mr President, a couple of words about the walls at the borders and the European Union budget. In Latvia, the second largest city of Daugavpils is located roughly less than 30km away from the Belarussian border. Likewise, major cities like Ludza, Krāslava or Dagda are located within the same proximity to the Russian border. Building walls or any other military or border control infrastructure will …

21

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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2024 budgetary procedure: Joint text (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner Hahn, Secretary of State Madam Samblás, colleagues, we have got a budget 2024, which is good news. We could reach a reasonable agreement. We could protect and reinforce key programmes that are vital for the Union and for the European citizens: science, youth, health programs, transport, military, mobility, the fight against fraud with EU funds, international humanitarian…

17

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2024 - all sections (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner Hahn, Secretary of State Samblás, we all do understand in this House perfectly the magnitude of the pressure on Heading 7. The fact that we will have to use special flexibility instruments, like SMI for instance, is definitely the bad news for all of us. We can only deal with the pressure in the medium term if we revise the MFF, considering pressure created by the COVID …

17

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2024 - all sections (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner Hahn, Secretary of State Samblás, dear colleagues, there was a clear purpose why the European institutions were established: to help and protect the common interests of the European people. All of these establishments have specific roles, from developing EU laws and policy-making, to implementing policies and working in areas like health, medicine, transport or environme…

3

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Interim report on the proposal for a mid-term revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 (debate)

Madam President, dear colleagues, in this House I represent Latvian voters who live at the border region of Latgale, bordering both Russia and Belarus. European money is crucial for the people of Latgale because – and I know it very well – they face more social and economic hardships these days than an absolute majority of other European regions. The stability, prosperity and security of Europe is…

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Presentation by the Council of its position on the draft general budget - 2024 financial year (debate)

Madam President, Secretary of State, Commissioner, colleagues, over the last two years, inflation in general and increasing energy prices in particular have put extraordinary pressure both on budgets of Europeans and their households and on the budgets of the European institutions. On the one hand, we must provide our colleagues across the institutions with adequate resources to fulfil their funct…

14

Dec

2022

EN Speech

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Upscaling the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, dear Colleagues, the Latvian media recently reported about a renovation project of a leading hospital in Riga that will be financed by Next Generation EU. EUR 37 million are planned to be spent on full reconstruction of historical premises, as well as buying heavily needed modern medical equipment. Spending European money to upgrade a hospital in order to cope with t…

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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

Madam President, I would like to talk today about the European Parliament’s buildings policy. We see these days more and more kids all across Europe, from Latvia to Belgium, from Sweden to Portugal, many thousands of them coming to school with either empty lunchboxes or no money to buy themselves lunch in the school canteen. That’s because their parents have to make a choice between paying their h…