Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-08-Speech-3-061-000"
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"en.20110608.5.3-061-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to start my speech by praising the work of the rapporteur and all the members of the Special committee on the policy challenges and budgetary resources for a sustainable European Union after 2013 (SURE Committee). Above all, I must praise their determination over the past year of work to achieve a majority agreement and majority support in Parliament for a report such as the one we are presenting today. This report is the road map that the European Union must follow if we want to meet the political, economic and social objectives we have set ourselves, and also if we want to overcome the challenges we are going to face in the coming years. This is the script we must follow in order to emerge from the crisis, and to ensure that our growth is intelligent, sustainable and integrated, as set forth in the Europe 2020 strategy.
If we agree that the value of the European Union is much more than the sum of the 27 Member States that comprise it, if we are in favour of high quality, responsible agriculture, if we want to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, if we want to help our Mediterranean neighbours in their transition towards democracy, if we want to keep investing in research and innovation, if we want to carry on fighting climate change and investing in education, training and Erasmus grants, if we still believe in the cohesion policy as a tool for sustainable development and solidarity between our countries, and if we still support, for example, trans-European energy and transport networks – in short, if we still want more Europe – then we must call for a bigger budget for the European Union.
That is why we warn in this report that without sufficient resources, we will not be able to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves. We know that some members of the Council do not agree with increasing the budget – we have seen as much here. They were not in favour in economic boom times either. Now they say it is because of the crisis, but they wanted cuts when the current financial perspective was negotiated too. That is why we are asking the Council, if it does not agree with this budget increase, to tell us which objectives it does not want to be met.
In this report, we do not only set out the policies we want to achieve. We also show how to finance them and we put forward a discussion on own resources. This discussion, designed to bring to an end the false debate of the net contributors, seeks funding without hand outs, funding without exceptions, funding that is fair. We have put forward various options for doing this, but I have a preference for one of them, and Commissioner Lewandowski knows very well which one it is: it is the tax on financial transactions or, as it is known in many of our countries, the Robin Hood tax. This tax would make it possible to raise between EUR 200 billion and EUR 300 billion. It is a tax that penalises speculators and would force all those who have profited by gambling with our money to pay up. It is a tax that would increase transparency and reduce financial speculation and, above all, a tax that would not affect citizens, because it would force those directly responsible for the crisis to pay for their excesses.
We are really only asking you for one thing: to set your sights higher. We ask you to set your sights higher to ensure that the European project continues on track and does not become stalled, because that would cost us our future."@en1
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