Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-21-Speech-3-011-000"
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"en.20121121.4.3-011-000"2
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"Mr President, EUR 50 billion less; no, EUR 80 billion less; EUR 100 billion, EUR 200 billion: who is offering more and who is offering less? This is the question which appears to be uppermost in the minds of the European governments today. It is a shameful ‘race to the bottom’, with no discussion of the tasks on the European Union’s agenda. It is as if the European budget were a zero-sum game: what I give to you, I lose, and what you win, I lose.
We want to help the people in the region, and international aid and the assistance from the European Union are essential here. Every day, we see new conflicts emerging in the world around us, and then these same heads of government and foreign ministers want to make cuts. Let me say this: I hope that the Egyptians will have the chance to help build peace, and by that I mean peace in the region, where peace is so urgently needed. That would also give Europe the opportunity to bring influence to bear, together with Egypt, and encourage Israel to pursue policies which give fresh prospects to the people of Palestine. However, Hamas should abandon its senseless policy of targeting civilians. That is something we cannot tolerate. That should be the clear message sent out from this sitting of the European Parliament today.
There are plenty of companies from the net contributors operating in the cohesion countries, investing and creating jobs but also earning income, but this is conveniently ignored. It is not a zero-sum game, it is a united Europe to which we should be committed. It is a Europe with a specific agenda to fulfil. The President has pointed out that we should not only be talking numbers, we should also talking tasks, and I am grateful to him for that. That is what the Commission President has done. Mr Barroso, I encourage you to maintain your fighting spirit! If you keep fighting, we will have you firmly on our side and then, together, we will achieve a successful outcome.
Let me ask the Council this. What about Europe’s numerous young unemployed? How are they supposed to manage without Europe’s assistance? Is that the message we want to send out to them? Should we scale down successful programmes like Erasmus? Is that how we should prepare for the mobility that is required? Should research funding, which is already in short supply, be cut back even further? Is that our contribution to competitiveness? Should a European budgetary straitjacket now be introduced in parallel to the national budget restraint and the credit crunch? Let me make the point that we did not create the debt; it was the individual Member States that did that. Is this our contribution to growth?
President Barroso has already mentioned international solidarity, and especially our solidarity towards neighbouring countries. Are these concepts merely empty words? I would ask the foreign ministers to remain silent next time if they are not prepared to follow their words with action and financial assistance.
Have we set excessively high targets for development cooperation? We said that this is a policy area that Europe can now deal with, so national budgets can be reduced, but now cuts are being called for at the European level as well. That is the policy approach being advocated here. It is a policy that lacks courage. Yes, we need to make savings, but why are we not seeing the heads of government making savings in relation to the establishment of the European patent court, for example? Apparently, the court now needs three separate sites! What is more, Mr Cameron, the economiser-in-chief, is determined to host one of these sites in London! That has nothing to do with restraint!
Why are we not generating funds where there is scope to do so, for example through more efficient measures to tackle tax evasion and tax avoidance? The approach adopted here is one of extreme caution, but if tackled properly, it would yield enough funding for the European and the national budgets.
We should not confuse thriftiness with a lack of courage. In the European Parliament, we – my group and many fellow Members – are prepared to make savings. However, we also have the courage to commit to the tasks that lie ahead. We are not simply making demands; we want to play our part. That is not always popular here in the House, but we have the courage to do so. Let me say this to the members of the Council: we also have the courage to say ‘no’ when we are presented with bad compromises. We are prepared to vote for compromises, but not bad ones. The Council needs to understand that.
There is much more that I would like to say about the budget, but in response to recent events, I would also like to touch upon an issue which is causing us grave concern and which, perhaps, has an – albeit indirect – connection with the budget, namely the situation in Gaza. I think we would all be willing to contribute larger sums of money from our budgets if this helped to offer the people in Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip, a brighter future, indeed, any future at all.
We would all like to see Israel pursuing policies which give more scope and leeway to the Gaza Strip and release it from the present stranglehold. However, let me make one thing very clear, and I say this quite deliberately: Hamas must stop targeting civilians in Israel at last. This is not helping the people of Gaza, it does not promote peace, and it does not give us Europeans any possibility of bringing influence to bear on Israel and encouraging it to pursue different policies at last, and by that I mean policies which would be beneficial to people in this region."@en1
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