22
Nov
2022
Watch
System of own resources of the European Union (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this European Parliament has always advocated new revenue for the budget of the European Union, genuine own resources, which should be genuine and not exclusive transfers from the respective budgets of the Member States. It is essential to end the distinction between net contributors and net beneficiaries. In fact, all the Member States are beneficiaries of the European Union budget, and many of those who are called frugal forget, and do not tell their citizens, that they are the ones who benefit the most, for example from the internal market. No one can feel that they own the budget because of the transfers that are made, and so we have always advocated the necessary creation of new revenue, new own resources. The decision to create new own resources is a complicated, time-consuming decision of the most complex in the legal order of the European Union. The European Commission makes its proposal. The European Parliament gives a non-binding opinion. The Member States in the Council have to decide unanimously, and then there is ratification according to the constitutional rules of each national parliament. This is also proof that there are no European taxes. In the end, there must be a ratification by all national parliaments in order to have new revenue. If the revenues were important, today they are still much more important. With the NextGenerationEU, the European Commission has sought €800 billion from the markets, but €420 billion has given rise to the creation of the recovery and resilience plans and also to the reinforcement of some programmes that will be paid from the EU budget, and that will be paid by 2058. And we can't penalize the next generations. Nor can we cut the next programmes, and the cost of paying off the debt after 2027 is high: it is more than EUR 15 billion a year, which is why new revenue is increasingly important for us to pay off our debt and to meet the new challenges in terms of what common projects we need to have. And our principles for creating new resources are simple: Those who don't pay should pay. Those who benefit most from the internal market should contribute. At the same time, we must respect and influence and pursue the priorities of this Parliament and the European Union, the fight against climate change, the goal of digital. And to that end, we have succeeded and put forward new proposals for own resources, along the lines of the Commission, the strengthening of the emission allowance market, the border adjustment mechanism, which allows for more justice and fairer competition. Those who are producing outside the European Union and shipping here products that do not have the same rules, particularly in terms of the emissions allowance market, for the sake of fairness should also see these products taxed. In addition, the digital giants and multinationals, who benefit from the internal market, must also be called upon to contribute. I hope that this package of own resources, which originates from the interinstitutional agreement, will be respected and then there will be a new package to respect the interinstitutional agreement, the roadmap, in order to protect the citizens, to respect our priorities, to have resources to deal with the debt and what are the common programmes in the European Union that we all have to defend.