Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-17-Speech-3-014"
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"en.20081217.3.3-014"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the 2009 budget is no less, but also no more than a compromise. Nor is this any surprise, as we have just heard. The financial perspective does not permit great leaps; the structure of the European budget is much too rigid and inflexible for this as things stand.
We must invest more in cultural diversity – this is the wealth of the European Union, and citizens will thank us for this when they see that European funds are really reaching their local area. If we wish to behave responsibly, we must also do more in the way of preventive external policy, rather than reacting only when it is too late. That too, falls within our political responsibility. It is important to act in good time; which is why we need more resources for the Instrument for Stability.
In view of the forthcoming elections in June, we must show the European public that we have understood, that we have courage, and that we are prepared to change European policy, including with all due moderation with regard to the European budget. I hope and believe that citizens will appreciate this when it comes to the elections.
Nevertheless, the 2009 budget sends out some important signals. For example, we have succeeded in providing EUR 1 billion more for food aid; that is, for the poorest of the poor, and hopefully for sustainable agricultural policy in the poorest countries. We shall also be spending a little more on small- and medium-sized enterprises – very important to economic development – and a little more on tackling climate change.
New priorities are necessary, however. We need a revision of the European budget, and I should like to address this speech in particular to the Member States, including the government of my home country, Germany. We must respond to the crisis in the short term, but naturally also in the medium and long term. Obviously, the EU budget cannot replace national budgets or national policymaking, but anyone who does not adapt to crises is guaranteed to fail.
Recently, I saw on television the press conference broadcast when the head of General Motors appealed to the United States Congress for further loans. He argued, ‘We need to build green cars, we need to invest in green technologies’, and he was right. Unfortunately, this manager was rather slow in realising this, and stocks of unsold American trucks are piling up. It is indeed true that our economy needs to be restructured. Europe must manufacture new, environmentally-friendly, high-tech eco-products if we want to see economic success in the next few years, on both the internal and world markets.
We must reduce emissions significantly. We must reduce our dependence on oil. We must invest more in renewable energy and much more in research. This will create opportunities for new products and thus also for new jobs. We must certainly change our agricultural policy; it must be linked to ecological energy generation. That, too, will present Europe’s farmers with a new opportunity.
We must also spend more on well-understood development aid – not as charity, but because it is an intelligent, strategic policy to introduce fair trade worldwide and to really develop a strategic approach to narrowing the prosperity gap on a global scale. We must also realise at long last that we have to link growth to environmental protection and the fight against climate change. We need a new model for thinking about growth, and this goes not only for Europe but also for emerging economies such as India and China, and the United States too, of course.
We very much hope that the new Obama administration will bring a change in American thinking and a rethink regarding the successor to the Kyoto Protocol. All this must also be reflected in the European budget, however, which is why new priorities are necessary. We must answer the question as to where the money comes from. My group – the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance – is of the opinion that more environmental taxes are needed. CO
consumption must be taxed, and kerosene taxes must be brought in at long last. This should supply a large proportion of the European budget.
Everything we are hearing from the Commission at present – that is, every couple of months – indicates, however, that internal logic is showing that we need a revision of the European budget to demonstrate to the public that we have indeed understood, that we want to change things, that we need new priorities, that we want to spend more on research and development, and that we need new propulsion technologies.
Of course, we must also carry out more research in this regard; there is no way around this. As we have already discussed, cereals belong on the table and not in the tank – something the European Union must also make clear. During the economic crisis, we must put more money into education: into the Erasmus Mundus Programme for student mobility and university exchanges, and into lifelong learning. This is the only way to give young people in Europe new opportunities on the labour markets of the future and also in their personal lives."@en1
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