Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner Gentiloni, the Commission has to present the assessment on the Recovery and Resilience Facility by 31 July. And with this report from the European Parliament we intend to contribute constructively to this assessment. It is true that we have only been implementing the recovery plans for a year, but I believe that the data available to us so far can be considered quite positive. The response to the crisis has been, unlike in 2008, forceful, coordinated and above all innovative, overcoming many barriers and breaking some taboos. Because we not only decided to create a fund of almost EUR 700 billion, but that fund has been financed with European debt and will also be repaid with new European taxes. That is, a fund that applies a double solidarity for both expenditure and income. And this time, yes, the Union has demonstrated its clear commitment to its citizens, its businesses and its territories. The fund has already had and will have very positive effects on the economies of our countries. It is giving stability to our economies and is allowing us to maintain high levels of investment at a time of great global uncertainty. The pandemic first and the war afterwards have shaken many of our organisational structures and, above all, have highlighted the need for strategic autonomy in essential supply chains, critical services and infrastructure. This fund is not the solution to all our needs, but it is laying a very solid foundation thanks to the reforms and investments that are being financed. We were right when, as Parliament, we proposed adding four more pillars to the objectives of the green and digital transition that have focused on the economy, on social and territorial cohesion, on health and institutional resilience and, of course, on support and protection measures for our children and young people. The six pillars have been translated, for example, into a 37% green target, which we will follow very closely to make it real, something that for the moment seems to be in doubt, and into a 20% digital target, which has been far exceeded with the plans presented and we reach almost 30%, thanks to which SMEs, public services or the health sector are benefiting. In the social field, according to the Commission's estimates, we are about 20% of expenditure, which is not a bad thing and thanks to it, employment incentives for disadvantaged groups are being financed, for example, or labour legislation is being amended to provide greater protection, quality and stability in jobs. But we have also found that some governments have not sufficiently taken into account the socio-economic impact of the pandemic on women and the most vulnerable groups and have therefore not calibrated well the social dimension of their plans. Health systems are also benefiting from European investment, with significant improvements in hospital infrastructure, strengthened primary care and prevention. But you have to give a tug of ears here, because of the lack of commitment to mental health. This has to be a European priority. And I would like to end with two cross-cutting points that I consider essential. First, respect for the rule of law. This Parliament has positioned itself very clearly – the Member States have to comply with each and every one of the obligations deriving from the rule of law – and has been blunt in that the recovery plans of the non-compliant countries should not be approved. This is the case with Hungary and it was the case with Poland, although here both the Commission and the Council are of the opinion that the conditions are in place to move forward, something that we as a Parliament do not share, and I repeat it again: not a single euro disbursed until all agreed measures have been implemented. This is a matter of the highest priority and importance for Parliament, for my group and especially for me, as rapporteur for the two regulations on recovery and resilience, but also for budgetary conditionality in relation to respect for the rule of law. And secondly, the new scenario after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The impact of the war is translating into millions of refugees that we have to take in, in very high inflation rates, in sky-high energy prices. This adds much more pressure to the situation created by the pandemic. When we negotiated this Mechanism, we were aware of the need for a green transition by ecology, but also by economy. Today the urgency is more evident: for the heat waves, for the price of gas and for the need to disconnect from Russia. And, with REPowerEU, we will try to adjust needs with available funding to maximize impact, but let's not cheat, there isn't much more money. It is almost the same budget and European budgets are also on the limit. In pandemic we did the hardest thing: change our paradigm. Let us now reflect together on how to build a new financial architecture based on these last steps that we have all fruitfully taken together.

Mr President, Madam President von der Leyen, I suppose you will not be surprised that this positive assessment of the plan presented by the Polish Government is received by us with much doubt, because we are all aware of the shortcomings of the plan – proof of which has been the 13 months that have taken to give it the go-ahead – and because in this Parliament we have adopted countless resolutions denouncing the systematic violation of the rule of law by the Morawiecki government. You, the Commission, as guardians of the Treaties, are responsible for the implementation of European Union law under the control of the Court of Justice of the European Union. And we, this Parliament, are responsible for monitoring the Commission. The Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation is very clear: the plan has to meet eleven requirements to be positively assessed and this includes the recommendations of the semester regarding the independence, efficiency and quality of the justice system. And this has resulted in those three conditions, which I will not mention because they have already been said several times. Your obligation, as the Commission, is to rigorously verify the implementation of all the conditions set out in this plan, some of which have to be met by the end of the month. So, given that there are 23 days left, I think the Council could also wait before making its final decision. In any case, what has to be very clear is that without compliance with these requirements not a single euro can be transferred. And I conclude with one last message: the values of the European Union are the cornerstone of the Union and, as such, we must maintain an unwavering position. For your defence, we have the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation, which we cannot forget.

Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I must begin by saying that I very much regret the absence of President von der Leyen at such an important moment for the European Union. I am not saying this because I am responsible for the dossier, but even the Court of Justice itself has said so. Today is a great day for the European Union, for democracy and for the rule of law. Today is one of those days that should be marked in the calendar of the Union's great progress: this morning we have heard the judgment of the Court of Justice which supports those of us who defended from the outset the need for a mechanism which would make the European budget conditional on respect for the rule of law. We are right that we said that the defence of common values could not only be a requirement to enter the European Union, but that it had to be demonstrated every day. We cannot say that there is full democracy when there is no judicial independence, when the LGBTI community is persecuted or when freedom of the press is curtailed in a Member State. This poses a risk not only to these countries, but also to the common European project. We have been working on this mechanism for years and, more importantly, citizens have been waiting for us to activate it for years. The European Commission, Commissioner, must act now and enforce the law in every corner of the European Union. It is your obligation and it is your responsibility. And they have all the necessary instruments to do so, including, as of today, the endorsement of the Court of Justice. So I don't know what else they want, I don't know what they're waiting for to act. They have to apply the Regulation now. We are at least 14 months behind schedule.

Madam President, Mr Minister, Mr Vice-President, Commissioner, we took advantage of this last plenary session to do a little review of how the Recovery Plan is going. As has been said here, so far most national plans have been submitted and most national programmes have been approved. Pre-financing arrived in the summer and now it is time to sign the operations agreements and, above all, to present the first reports with the milestones and objectives fulfilled. At the moment, only Spain has done so, but I really hope that the rest of the countries will accelerate and present them as soon as possible because that will mean that the entire preparation phase will be finished and we will enter fully into the execution. And for that 2022 is going to be key. And it will also be key because we will have a lot of data to be able to make an assessment of the Plan. In February they will also have to present their Annual Report and, among other things, they will have to assess and quantify the expenditure that has been made for each of the six pillars and social spending, with a relative breakdown in terms of children and youth. They know that my group has been very critical of the selection of social and gender indicators, and we want it to be improved. We want to be rigorous, we need to have the best tools and, furthermore, if we want to be rigorous – and this is my last sentence – we need to respect the rule of law. Without respect for the rule of law, there can be no funding from either the Recovery Plan or the European budgets.

Mr President, Commissioner, as you have just said, the recovery plans are being approved and funding is coming to the Member States. This is great news for everyone, but it is not the case for Hungary and Poland. They presented their plans in May. They have had to ask for extensions, which, if I am not mistaken, have also expired. So it is clear that we are concerned about what is happening with these plans, because it is clear to no one that, at least in part, these delays have to do with respect for the rule of law, and obviously, as rapporteur responsible for the conditionality mechanism and the recovery plan, I am very concerned about what is happening and at what point we are. Because the topics of debate are very serious. We are talking about the fight against corruption, the need for changes in the public procurement system, transparency in information on final recipients and, of course, non-discrimination in access to funds. We're even talking about something that seems incredible: acceptance of the primacy of European law. And given the history of non-respect for the rule of law and the lack of willingness of these governments to comply with the rules, it becomes very difficult, very difficult to think about a possible approval of the plans. Because as things stand, they do not comply with some of the country-specific recommendations or with criterion 10 of the Regulation on the prevention, detection and correction of fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest. And, in addition, it would be a bit counterproductive for us to approve on the one hand the plans and initiate procedures to sanction the same countries with the rule of law mechanism. You are not, you are in the evaluation phase and you cannot say anything, so unless this debate serves to enable this Parliament to say what its position is on these recovery plans.

Mr President, Commissioner, one more plenary session in which we talked about the mechanism of conditionality of European funds with regard to the rule of law, and the question is when we will see action. Because the mechanism came into force on 1 January and we have not yet seen its fruits. From the first moment we were very clear and warned that these guidelines were not necessary. We had just concluded an agreement and at no point were we told that it was not clear enough and therefore we do not understand what we can bring with these guidelines. But in any case, and I have said this on several occasions, Parliament is always ready to work with the Commission to ensure a rigorous application of the regulation. And, in this regard, several key messages on our part. The first of all, and which clearly defines the context in which we work, is that the guidelines are not legally binding and that, in addition, they cannot alter, extend or limit the text of the Regulation. Second message: the Commission has not met the deadline we are asking from Parliament, which we obviously regret, but it is also not very understandable, because there was plenty of time to have presented guidelines, a draft in March and to have collected input from Parliament and the Council, and we would have reached 1 June. Third message: We want more information, because it is okay for the Commission to tell us that they are working and that they are studying the cases, but we need more information. With regard to the guidelines themselves, our report clearly reiterates the Rules of Procedure that we are negotiating. In fact, the Commission's own draft merely takes up what we agreed in the regulation, which further reinforces the non-need for these guidelines. But, in any case, we take the opportunity to repeat what our position is, and we have structured it around four sections. One: breach of the principles of the rule of law. We recall that both individual breaches of the principles of the rule of law and systemic or widespread breaches should be considered. And we also recall that, in Article 3 of the Regulation, we have included a non-exhaustive list on indications of breaches of the principles of the rule of law, and that, of course, the European Commission can and should use any available information from a recognised institution. And, in addition, we also believe that we must give civil society and NGOs the opportunity to provide that information to the Commission. Second paragraph of our report: protection of the Union budget. Because as institutions we are responsible for sound financial management, that is, for effective and efficient management, as defined in the Financial Regulation. Clearly, there is a clear link between sound financial management and respect for the rule of law, a rule of law that must be understood in its relation to other values and principles included in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union. This was also in the Rules of Procedure. Discrimination against minorities, attacks on freedom of the press, freedom of association or assembly, independence of the judiciary, proper functioning of institutions to combat fraud, corruption, etc.: all this can have a direct and sufficient impact on the EU budget. Having clarified what we consider to be a breach of the rule of law and the impact it can have on the budget, we talked about the measures, and here the regulation is very clear. Articles 6 and 7: all stages and a precise timetable are set out. It states that we have to respect the principles of objectivity, non-discrimination and equal treatment, and that, in addition, the measures adopted have to be proportionate taking into account the nature, duration, gravity. It's all very clear. And finally, we end our contribution with the protection of the final recipients and beneficiaries. Probably – and I take this opportunity to congratulate not only my co-rapporteur, but also the other groups in this House, and to thank them for their work – the first idea we put on the table was the protection of the final beneficiaries. Because the mechanism cannot penalise or harm these beneficiaries, and Member States have an obligation, including an obligation to pay, to respect all agreements. In the agreement we reached with the Council, and obviously with the Commission, at the end of last year, the Commission committed itself to establishing a system in which beneficiaries could access all the information and, above all, a system that would allow them, if necessary, to report irregularities. And, in addition to this system, I hope that the Commission is also working on how to use all available tools to ensure that funds will effectively reach their recipients. So, Commissioner, this debate is a good time to explain to us how they are working on that information and complaints portal, to explain to us, too, their point of view on that need for the guidelines and their content, but I think this is the best occasion for them to tell us exactly what they are doing and for them to be able to answer that first question that I was asking in my speech: by when the first performances?