VORSITZ: MARTIN SCHULZ
Präsident

(Die Sitzung wird um 9.00 Uhr eröffnet.)

  Der Präsident. − Als nächster Punkt der Tagesordnung folgen die Erklärungen des Rates und der Kommission zum aktuellen Stand der Verfassungsänderungen in Ungarn (2013/2577(RSP)).

Ich weise die Mitglieder darauf hin, dass es zu dieser Aussprache kein Catch-the-eye-Verfahren gibt und dass keine Wortmeldungen nach dem Verfahren der „blauen Karte“ berücksichtigt werden.

  Lucinda Creighton, President-in-Office of the Council. − Mr President, honourable Members, the Presidency has been following closely the issue which is the subject of your debate this morning. We are of course very well aware of the concerns which have been expressed by a number of political groups in this House following the amendments to the Hungarian constitution which were adopted recently by the Hungarian Parliament.

You have requested that the Council participate in this debate, and the Irish Presidency, representing the Council, is happy to do so. However, I have to make it clear that the Council has not discussed the situation in Hungary, nor has it agreed any position on this issue. Since I speak on behalf of the Council, it follows that I am not in a position to make a substantive contribution to this morning’s debate. The Commissioner will – I am sure – wish to update us on the latest developments with regard to Hungary, but before that I would like to make a few general remarks.

The context to our discussion this morning is of course that the European Union is founded on certain basic values which are set out in the Treaty, and which are also contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. These rights, freedoms and principles are also enshrined in the constitutional traditions of the Member States and the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the European Union will shortly accede and to which all EU Member States are party.

The Council attaches particular importance to ensuring that these rights, freedoms and values are fully respected, and I know that this House shares this view. However, this is a matter in the first instance for the Commission, which is charged with ensuring the application of the Treaties and is responsible for promoting the general interest of the Union.

The Commission President has, together with the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, raised concerns over the amendments introduced to the Hungarian constitution in relation to the extent to which these respect the principle of the rule of law, EU law and Council of Europe standards. We are also aware that there have been contacts between the Commission and the Hungarian authorities. I am sure that the Commissioner will have more to say on this in a moment. I am pleased to note in this regard that Prime Minister Orbán, in his letter to President Barroso, has committed that he has already initiated the necessary legislative steps to follow up on the points raised by the Commission.

Whilst the Council is always concerned to ensure that the basic values of the Union are respected, no procedure involving the Council linked to respect for the values of the Union by Hungary has to date been invoked.

For the Irish Presidency, the promotion of the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights are important priorities. Equality, tolerance, respect for human rights and the rule of law are the values on which our Union is founded.

I wish to mention that the Irish Presidency, in consultation with the Commission, suggested that a mechanism to better support the protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law in Member States might make a useful contribution. It could cover the sharing of best practice, benchmarking, the evaluation of outcomes in an objective way and formulating appropriate recommendations and guidelines for action.

This idea will feature when the Presidency hosts a conference in Dublin on 9 and 10 May to discuss ways to strengthen the protection of fundamental rights and promote the rule of law, in an effort to build understanding and support on this important subject.

I am not in a position to say any more at this stage. I speak as the Presidency of the Council, and therefore in the name of all 27 of its members. I will, however, follow this debate closely and can assure Members that I will pay particular attention to the range of views which will doubtless be expressed here this morning.

  Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the Commission. − Mr President, colleagues, Ministers, honourable Members, I want to thank the President of the Commission for having tabled this discussion. This is a subject that attracts a lot of attention, and the European Parliament is the right place to discuss the EU institutions and matters related to the values and principles on which the European Union is founded.

Today I represent President Barroso and the European Commission. I would like to underline clearly the role and the approach of the Commission. I will give you an overview of where we stand with regard to the specific issues in question.

The Commission has been closely monitoring developments since 2011, and I would like to remind you that President Barroso was in this House one year ago. On that occasion, he informed you about the Commission’s position. Since 2011 the Commission has played an active role as guardian of the Treaties and has assessed legislation to ensure that it is in compliance with EU law. It has introduced infringement procedures: some have been launched, others are pending, and others have been brought to judgment by the Court of Justice, where the Commission’s interpretation of EU law has been borne out. We now expect the Hungarian authorities to fully comply with the judgment of the Court.

I would like briefly to recall recent developments in Hungary. On 11 March the Hungarian Parliament adopted the Fourth Amendment to the fundamental law of Hungary. The week before – and with the full collaboration of the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, Mr Jagland – President Barroso spoke with Prime Minister Orbán. He communicated the Commission’s concerns on the conformity of the Fourth Amendment with EU law and with the principle of the rule of law, which is a core European value.

On 11 March, President Barroso and Secretary-General Jagland issued a joint statement. They expressed the shared concerns of both the Commission and the Council of Europe with respect to the principles of the rule of law, EU law and Council of Europe standards. In this context, allow me to quote Secretary-General Jagland, who said that: ‘the Hungarian Government is reintroducing the Transitional Provisions which were annulled by the Constitutional Court. This gives the impression that the government is willing to use the two-thirds parliamentary majority to overrule the Constitutional Court, which might endanger the fundamental principle of checks and balances in a democracy.’ This is what Secretary-General Jagland said.

These serious concerns need to be addressed in Hungary, and the Commission has therefore appealed to Prime Minister Orbán and his government to address and tackle them in a determined and unambiguous way.

The Commission is currently carrying out a detailed legal analysis of the amendments. The Commission’s legal analysis is progressing at a steady pace, in an objective, non-partisan and fair manner and in full respect of EU law and principles. That is what we have always done in all other situations in other Member States, including in Romania.

We are also working very closely with the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, which, as you know, will deliver an opinion on the compatibility of the amendments with the principles of the rule of law by mid-June.

Based on a first analysis of our Legal Service, President Barroso wrote to Prime Minister Orbán on 12 April expressing the Commission’s serious concerns regarding the conformity of the amendments with EU law. Prime Minister Orbán replied to this letter on the same day and declared that he was ready to cooperate and to pay full attention to the concerns raised. He informed the Commission that he had already initiated the necessary steps to address the concerns. He also reiterated his personal commitment to European norms and values, as well as that of his government and of the Hungarian Parliament.

Let us come back to the letter of President Barroso. There are three main issues: firstly, a clause, introduced by Article 17 of the Fourth Amendment to the Hungarian fundamental law, on European Court of Justice judgments entailing payment obligations. The implementation of this provision would mean that Hungary would introduce an ad-hoc tax on Hungarian citizens should Hungary be fined for breach of EU law. Now the question is, is it really sensible to make citizens pay a tax whenever the state fails to comply with EU law? In practice, citizens would be penalised twice: firstly by not having their rights under EU law upheld, and secondly by having to pay for this.

Now let us turn to the Constitution and the Treaty. This could undermine the authority of the Court of Justice and constitute a violation of Hungary’s duty of sincere cooperation, which is enshrined in Article 4 (3) of the Treaty on the European Union.

Secondly, with regard to the broad powers given by Article 14 of the Fourth Amendment – enabling the President of the National Office for the Judiciary to transfer cases from one court to another – the Council of Europe and the Commission expressed their concerns about this issue last year. However, a change has now been made which empowers an administrative office to transfer cases from one court to another. If applied to a case concerning EU law, this could raise issues of incompatibility with the EU obligation to provide for remedies sufficient to ensure effective legal protection, and to the right to a fair trial, as provided for by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Every citizen has the right to have a pre-established and reviewable decision on which judge will hear his or her case. This is essential in a democracy in order to prevent arbitrariness. The Commission raised this matter with the Hungarian authorities last year, and it reserves the right to launch an infringement procedure on this matter.

On 12 April the Hungarian authorities forwarded a draft law to the Commission that would modify the rules on the application of the transfer of cases. According to the authorities, this would address the Venice Commission’s concerns. We are carefully assessing this text.

Thirdly, the restrictions introduced by Article 5.1 of the Fourth Amendment to the publication of political advertisements. This article provides for restrictions on the publication of political advertisements during election campaigns, including elections to the European Parliament. We all know that limitations may be acceptable in some cases – they are lawful if they are duly justified and proportionate. According to this provision, political advertisements may only be published on public media services. It should be noted that the audience share of private media, where the restrictions would apply, represents roughly 80% in Hungary. On 15 April, the Hungarian authorities wrote to the Commission submitting a change to those rules. The new draft rules will be subjected to a very detailed analysis.

Members of Parliament, this list is by no means exhaustive, and the Commission will continue its legal analysis on the matter. Once the legal analysis is finalised, the Commission will, where relevant, take the necessary steps in order to start infringement procedures.

The Commission’s analysis will be thorough, sound and objective; it will reflect the special responsibility and the quasi-jurisdictional role of the Commission as Guardian of the Treaties. This is the latest development, but let me stress that this is not the first time the Commission has had to intervene in Hungary. Last year the Commission launched two infringement cases against Hungary. As you will recall, the first case concerned the forced early retirement of judges. In November last year, the Court of Justice confirmed the Commission’s legal analysis and declared the relevant Hungarian legislation incompatible with EU law.

Hungary is required to take the necessary measures to comply with the judgment of the Court, and the Commission continues to analyse compliance with this judgment. Although there is implementing legislation, we have not yet seen the actual reinstatement of these judges to their previous posts. The Commission regularly insists that Hungary apply the judgment of the Court swiftly and in full.

The second case concerns the violation of the independence of the Data Protection Authority and the termination of the mandate of the former Commissioner for Data Protection. This case is still pending before the Court of Justice. Last month the Commission reiterated its concerns to Hungary, stressing that the independence of a data protection supervisory authority is a key requirement of EU law.

The Commission regrets that, in spite of the case pending before the Court, Hungary has now gone even further by incorporating the premature termination at constitutional level through the Fourth Amendment. So much for EU law.

Now I will address the rule of law. Hungary will also need to take due account of the opinion that the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission will deliver in June, in full accordance with the principles, rules and values of both the European Union and the Council of Europe. The Commission expects a responsible answer from Hungary on this important opinion, which will be published in June this year.

President Barroso has also highlighted to Prime Minister Orbán the work of this Parliament in preparing the resolution – which will also be adopted in June – on the situation with regard to Fundamental Rights in Hungary, which is based on the work of your colleague Rui Tavares. The Commission expects the Hungarian authorities to engage in political dialogue with this House in order to address any conclusions that the resolution may set out.

I would like to assure you on behalf of the Commission that we will continue to call for the legislation to be brought into line with EU law and for the rule of law to be respected. The Commission has urged, and continues to urge, the Hungarian authorities to act in a responsible manner and in the best interest of Hungary and of the EU as a whole.

I would like to acknowledge that we received an immediate response to President Barroso’s letter. We will now need to analyse the draft changes and verify their compatibility with EU law.

  Frank Engel, au nom du groupe PPE. – Monsieur le Président, je n'ai pas besoin de revenir sur tous les détails que vient de nous livrer Mme Reding qui, au nom de la Commission, a défini le cadre et le périmètre de ce débat.

La Commission est en train de faire son travail et le groupe du parti populaire européen est d'avis que la Commission doit faire ce travail et les autorités hongroises, à l'issue de ce processus d'évaluation, portant sur ce qui est en train de se faire et sur ce qui ne l'est pas, seront instamment priées de se conformer à ce que les institutions européennes, notamment celle qui est gardienne des traités, estimeront utile et nécessaire de faire.

La raison plus immédiate de ce débat – le quatrième amendement constitutionnel en Hongrie – est, comme si souvent, un élément qui peut être appréhendé de deux façons différentes. Il y a, bien entendu, les autorités hongroises qui disent, avec de bons arguments, qu'elles agissent de façon positive. Et il y a tous ceux qui, pour des raisons tout aussi bonnes, disent que ce n'est pas le cas. C'est un débat, en fin de compte, juridiquement stérile.

Le grand problème, bien évidemment – Mme la Commissaire l'a aussi appréhendé –, c'est la question de savoir ce qu'on fait avec une majorité des deux tiers avec laquelle on peut tout et, surtout, ce qu'on en fait, si on est seul. Sur ce point également, il y a déjà tout de même une différence d'appréciation. En effet, il fut un temps où même la Commission de Venise applaudissait la Hongrie de posséder un édifice constitutionnel et légal qui requiert une majorité des deux tiers dans de nombreux domaines, en affirmant que cela assure la stabilité de l'ensemble, alors que maintenant c'est précisément le volume et la densité de tout ce qui doit être réglé par une majorité des deux tiers qui semble poser problème. On assiste donc à une évolution des conceptions.

Le système de la majorité des deux tiers a toujours existé en Hongrie. Elle a toujours été requise. Au début des années 90, il y avait un consensus entre tous les partis à l'exception du Fidez pour dire qu'il fallait maintenir le système de la Constitution et des lois cardinales afin d'assurer la stabilité. Et le Fidez, pendant le premier gouvernement qu'il a pu mener, était dans une situation où il a dû accepter cette majorité des deux tiers, détenue par d'autres. Par la suite, il a eu la chance de se faire élire dans les proportions que l'on connaît. Maintenant il est en train de réformer l'État selon des options politiques, culturelles et autres qui sont les siennes.

En fin de compte, je crois qu'il existe une autonomie constitutionnelle dans de nombreux domaines et une autonomie légale dans davantage de domaines encore, pour autant que cela n'empiète pas sur l'acquis communautaire.

Il y a énormément de dispositions qui ont été prises par les Hongrois et que l'on ne peut raisonnablement pas remettre en question simplement parce qu'elles émanent d'un parti qui dispose d'une majorité des deux tiers, décrochée à la suite d'élections parfaitement légitimes.

Personnellement, je n'aurais pas rédigé un certain nombre de dispositions constitutionnelles de la façon dont cela a été fait, mais cela n'enlève rien à la légitimité de la rédaction qui a été adoptée.

Je me souviens aussi d'une Présidence hongroise de l'Union européenne pendant laquelle les Hongrois ont, au fond, laissé un bon souvenir et de bonnes impressions à nous tous. Ce ne sont pas de plus mauvais Européens que nous. Or, j'ai vraiment l'impression que, actuellement, tout notre acharnement sur la Hongrie risque de faire croire aux Hongrois, électeurs du Fidez ou non, que l'Europe n'est pas vraiment de leur côté.

Les Hongrois vont avoir cette impression, tout comme les Grecs l'ont déjà pour d'autres raisons, tout comme les Chypriotes l'ont déjà pour une autre raison, tout comme les Italiens pour une autre raison, tout comme les Portugais pour une autre raison... Je pense qu'en fin de compte l'Europe est en train de perdre beaucoup de populations, pour des raisons différentes, qui ne se sentent plus représentées par ce que nous sommes en train de faire.

Je conclus par l'affirmation suivante. Je l'ai déjà dit au début de mon intervention: juridiquement, on peut avoir une appréciation divergente sur un certain nombre de choses. Celle de la Commission primera en définitive, il n'y a aucun doute à ce sujet. Mais il doit y avoir confrontation d'idées. Dans la mesure où, trop souvent, des intérêts particuliers s'affrontent et se confrontent, nous risquons, en fin de compte, de perdre l'adhésion de trop d'Européens à une démarche qui ne sera alors plus commune, et avec des valeurs européennes qui n'auront plus qu'une valeur académique. C'est un risque et je vous demande à tous de garder cela en mémoire également par rapport à la Hongrie.

(Applaudissements)

  Hannes Swoboda, im Namen der S&D-Fraktion. – Herr Präsident! Das ungarische Volk war immer ein Volk, das die Freiheit geliebt hat. Es hat sich gewehrt gegen die österreichische Dominanz, es hat sich gewehrt gegen die sowjetische Besatzung und gegen das kommunistische Regime. Einer, der sich gegen die Unfreiheit gewehrt hat, war Viktor Orbán in seinen frühen Jahren. Warum Viktor Orbán diesen Weg verlassen hat und wann genau der Sinneswandel gekommen ist, weiß ich nicht.

Das ungarische Parlament hat selbstverständlich das Recht, die Verfassung und die Gesetze zu beschließen. Aber in keinem Land, jedenfalls in keinem Rechtsstaat der Europäischen Union, dürfen beliebig Gesetze beschlossen werden. In keinem Rechtsstaat ist es zulässig, einfache Gesetze in den Verfassungsrang zu erheben, um zu verhindern, dass der Verfassungsgerichtshof tätig wird. In keinem Rechtsstaat ist es zulässig, dass Richter einfach frühzeitig pensioniert werden. Der Europäische Gerichtshof hat das festgestellt und Ungarn hat noch immer nicht den Erkenntnissen des Europäischen Gerichtshofs Genüge getan. In keinem Rechtsstaat ist es zulässig, den Bürger dem Gericht je nach Gutdünken der Behörden zuzuteilen und den gesetzlichen Richter zu verwehren. In keinem Rechtsstaat ist es zulässig, die Wahlwerbung – wie die Frau Kommissarin gesagt hat – unzulässig einzuschränken. Und in keinem Rechtsstaat ist es zulässig, den Bürger dafür zu bestrafen, dass eine Regierung das Recht verletzt und vielleicht vor den Europäischen Gerichtshof gebracht werden kann.

Ich weiß, viele Bürgerinnen und Bürger Ungarns sehen das nicht als das Hauptproblem an. Sie haben große wirtschaftliche und soziale Probleme. Aber die wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Probleme in Ungarn werden nicht dadurch gelöst, dass man den Rechtsstaat verletzt, genauso wenig wie das Problem der Obdachlosigkeit gelöst wird, indem man die Obdachlosen diskriminiert und verfolgt.

(Beifall)

All die Kritik, die vorgebracht wird, wird zurückgewiesen als eine Kritik der Linken. Präsident Barroso – ein Linker? Frau Vizepräsidentin Reding – eine Linke? Außenminister Spindelegger, der Vorsitzende der Österreichischen Volkspartei – ein Linker? Es ist doch grotesk, das zu behaupten. Meine Damen und Herren von der Europäischen Volkspartei, Sie haben gestern Orbán empfangen. Ich sehe einige hier, die ihn kritisiert haben, wie ich gehört habe. Ich sehe auch viele, die ihm applaudiert haben. Aber Sie müssen sich letztendlich entscheiden: Stehen Sie auf der Seite der Kommission, der Vizepräsidentin Reding, oder auf der Seite von Orbán und der Verletzung des Rechts? Stehen Sie auf der Seite der Rechtsstaatlichkeit und der Einhaltung der Rechtsstaatlichkeit oder nicht?

Ich würde auch den Rat bitten, eine klare Position einzunehmen. Denn was ich heute gehört habe, war nicht klar. Unterstützen Sie die Kommission bei ihrer rechtlich einwandfreien Tätigkeit! Wir haben manche Auseinandersetzung gehabt, gerade auch was z. B. Rumänien betrifft, wo die Situation ganz anders ist, aber darum geht es heute nicht. Heute geht es darum – und ich habe damals noch gesagt, ich unterstütze die Kommission –, ob wir der Kommissarin das Vertrauen geben, damit Sie dem Recht zum Durchbruch verhilft. Das ist die entscheidende Frage! Und da kann sich die Europäische Volkspartei nicht herumdrücken. Wir als Sozialdemokraten stehen jedenfalls auf der Seite des Rechts.

Und lassen Sie mich zuletzt noch eine Bemerkung machen: Ronald Lauder hat namens der jüdischen Gemeinschaft in den USA sehr kritische Worte gefunden, zuletzt auch das Internationale Auschwitz-Komitee. Ich mache Orbán nicht verantwortlich für den wachsenden Antisemitismus, aber Sie können nicht zuschauen, meine Damen und Herren der Europäischen Volkspartei, wenn heute ungestraft in Ungarn auf die Namenstafeln von Professoren an Universitäten geschrieben wird „Jude“, „Jude“, „Jude“ und das Hakenkreuz draufgemalt wird. Da erwarte ich mir eine klare Stellungnahme auch des ungarischen Premierministers und von Fidesz. Der Antisemitismus muss aufhören in Ungarn! Da muss es eine klare Position geben!

(Beifall)

  Der Präsident. − (Herr Szájer meldet sich zu einer Frage nach dem Verfahren der „blauen Karte“.) Es tut mir leid, Herr Szájer. Wir hatten zu Beginn dieser Debatte vereinbart, dass es weder eine „blaue Karte“ noch eine Catch-the-eye-Diskussion gibt. Das habe ich auch ausdrücklich vorher angekündigt.

(Zwischenruf)

Das hat mit Demokratie nichts zu tun. Es ist eine Frage der Geschäftsordnung und es ist von den Fraktionen vorher so festgelegt worden. Ich halte mich an die Entscheidungen, die Sie – die Fraktionen – hier treffen.

Aber bitte, wenn Sie unbedingt wollen, dann stellen Sie diese Frage nach dem Verfahren der „blauen Karte“.

  József Szájer (PPE), Kékkártyás kérdés. – Meg kell most kérdezni, hogy Swoboda frakcióvezető úr beleegyezik-e abba, hogy én kérdést tegyek fel neki. De úgy látom, hogy ez így van. Szeretném megkérdezni Swoboda urat, hogy tudja-e azt Ön, hogy tegnap a magyar bíróság az új alaptörvénynek a negyedik módosítása alapján tiltotta be azt az „Adj gázt!” nevezetű antiszemita motoros tüntetést, amely a Holocaust emléknapon – amelyet az Orbán-kormány vezetett be – az Élet menete ellen kívánt egy szélsőjobboldali csoport elindítani. Tud-e Ön erről?

Még egy kérdést, hogyha föltehetek, akkor hadd tegyem föl azt is: Ön bírálta azt, hogy Magyarországon az alkotmányt módosították az Alkotmánybíróság döntése alapján. Az Ön által, az Ön pártja által vezetett koalíció Bécsben nemrégiben egy taxisrendelet kapcsán a nagykoalíció keretében módosította az alkotmányt, mert nem tetszett neki az Alkotmánybíróság egy döntése. Ön nem ugyanazt kritizálja-e Magyarországon, mint amit Ausztriában Önök maguk is csinálnak?

  Hannes Swoboda (S&D), Antwort auf eine Frage nach dem Verfahren der „blauen Karte“. – Was die zweite Frage betrifft, war das nicht die Wiener Regierung, sondern das österreichische Parlament vor 30 Jahren, Kollege Szájer – vor 30 Jahren! Und das ist von mir und vielen anderen Kollegen heftig kritisiert worden. Da sollten Sie sich genauer informieren!

Zweitens: Es ist immer schwer zu verfolgen, weil es ja permanent Entscheidungen im Parlament gibt. Ich nehme das zur Kenntnis. Kollege Szájer, für mich ist es ein Beweis, wie wichtig der Druck aus Europa auf die ungarische Regierung ist, damit man zu Veränderungen kommt. Ich würde Sie aber um eines bitten, Kollege Szájer: Vielleicht könnte man die Hetze gegen Frau Reding in Ungarn stoppen! Denn wenn Frau Reding als Vizepräsidentin der Kommission heute in Ungarn als „Pitbull“ der Kommission und Europas dargestellt wird und das geduldet wird, ist das auch für mich, der ich kein politischer Freund von Frau Reding bin, eine inakzeptable Hetze, die zu unterbinden ist.

(Beifall)

  Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Verts/ALE). - Herr Präsident! Ich finde es ungehörig. Herr Szájer war dabei, als in der Konferenz der Präsidenten gemeinsam beschlossen wurde, dass keine Fragen gestellt werden.

Dann brauchen wir uns nicht mehr zu treffen und brauchen keine Vereinbarung mit Ihnen zu treffen, weil Sie, Herr Szájer, in einer Sitzung nicht mal dabei sind, auch wenn Sie dabei sind. Das finde ich unmöglich!

(Unruhe im Saal)

  Der Präsident. − Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen! Vielleicht können wir versuchen, wieder ruhiger zu werden. Das ist eine emotionale Debatte. Machen wir uns hier keine Illusionen. Man kann das von hier oben gut sehen, hier geht es um eine klare Aufteilung der politischen Lager. Da muss man bisweilen auch schon mal versuchen, die Emotionen zu kanalisieren. Ich versuche das jetzt.

Wir haben eine Frage zugelassen, die Frage von Herrn Szájer. Ich habe dem, was Herr Cohn-Bendit gesagt hat, nichts hinzuzufügen. Ich gehe jetzt davon aus, dass das die einzige Frage dieser Art war.

(Herr Cramer meldet sich zu einer weiteren Frage nach dem Verfahren der „blauen Karte“.)

Nein, Herr Cramer, Sie können sich hier nicht prophylaktisch melden. Es wird immer nur eine Blue-Card-Frage zugelassen. Ich entscheide das also jetzt: Ab jetzt lasse ich keine weiteren Zwischenfragen mehr zu. Das kriegen wir aus vielfältigen Gründen nicht hin. Das war ein Beschluss der Konferenz der Präsidenten.

  Guy Verhofstadt, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, you say it is normal that there is a split on this in Parliament, but in fact it is not normal at all. Hungary is breaching a number of fundamental principles of EU law and of the Treaties, so it is not normal that there is a split. We should see a united Parliament saying to Hungary that it has to change a number of its provisions in a number of laws and in the Constitution – certainly after the decisions taken on the Fourth Amendment. So I do not find it normal that this debate is again a debate between the left and the right.

What the Commission has said this morning is mainly an overview of all the letters they have sent to the Hungarian authorities, of the two infringement procedures that they started and of the fact that Hungary is non-compliant with one of these infringement procedures and with one of the decisions of the Court of Justice.

I think far more is at stake. What is at stake is that the Fourth Amendment of this constitution defines a family as a heterosexual couple and discriminating against other couples. It allows Parliament to vote on the status of churches and, by doing that, limits the freedom of religion in the country. It is about restricting the mobility rights of students. It is about reducing the power of the Constitutional Court – we did not hear that from the Commission. That is the main problem at the moment: that the power of the Constitutional Court is limited by this Fourth Amendment. It concerns the concentration of the power of the judiciary in the hands of the National Judicial Office, which is in fact against the rule of law and is not allowed in any country of the European Union.

That is what it is about; that is what is at stake. I want to hear the Council and the Commission saying something different from simply giving an overview of all the letters sent to Mr Orbán and of the two infringement procedures and the fact that Hungary is not complying with one of the decisions of the Court of Justice.

We have an article in the Treaty to handle this. We have Article 7 of the Treaty. Article 7 of the Treaty is very clear. It makes provision for a procedure when ‘there is a clear risk of a serious breach by a Member State of the values referred to in Article 2’. I think there is already a breach, because Mrs Reding is saying that Hungary is not complying with a decision of the Court of Justice concerning the application of these principles and values.

Maybe I am exaggerating. It is still a risk of a breach, but we can agree that there is a risk of a breach. After that kind of intervention by the Commission, with these elements and arguments, is there a risk of a breach by Hungary? Everybody sounded normal, intelligent and rational in saying ‘yes’. Beyond our political opinions, beyond the ideological footballs that lead to differences between us, we know there is a risk of a breach. That is my conclusion.

My request is that the Commission should start a procedure under Article 7 and ask the Council to debate it – or the Council can do so itself. And if the Commission does not do it, we have to have the courage here in this Parliament to start infringement proceedings under Article 7 of the Treaty.

(Applause)

  Rebecca Harms, im Namen der Verts/ALE-Fraktion. – Herr Präsident, sehr verehrte Kollegen! Es ist ja nicht das erste Mal, dass wir über Ungarn diskutieren. Ich möchte mich als Erstes noch einmal direkt an die Bürgerinnen und Bürger Ungarns wenden, um eines vorauszuschicken: Wir mischen uns keineswegs einfach nur in innere Angelegenheiten Ungarns ein. Aber Bürgerrechte und der Rechtsstaat – ich weiß nicht, wie Sie das sehen – sind doch das Herz des europäischen Projekts!

Ich sage gerade als deutsche Europäerin, dass ich glaube, dass wir, wenn wir das nur als leeres Versprechen für die Europäische Union vor uns hertragen und das nicht immer wieder auch einlösen und verwirklichen können, das Wesen des europäischen Projekts aufgeben. Deshalb: Das Verhältnis zwischen Inneren Angelegenheiten und Europa, die Behauptung, die von Viktor Orbán und auch Herrn Kollegen Szájer immer wieder vorgebracht wird, dass wir uns wie eine fremde Macht, wie Moskau und früher Wien, in Ungarn einmischen, diese Behauptung ist einfach politisch opportun, ist aber genauso eine Lüge.

Ich weiß nicht, ob die Bürgerinnen und Bürger in Budapest uns zuhören können, ich weiß nicht, was bei ihnen ankommt, denn klugerweise fing ja der Bruch der Rechtsstaatlichkeit und der Bürgerrechte in Ungarn damit an, dass die Medien gemainstreamt wurden und dass das Mediengesetz geändert worden ist. Ich kann nur hoffen, dass Leute in der Lage sind, Wege zu finden, uns tatsächlich zuzuhören.

Frau Reding, es tut mir sehr leid, dass die Kollegen der EVP-Fraktion es nicht im Kreuz haben, sich für das, was Fidesz-Kollegen in Ungarn mit Ihnen anstellen, zu entschuldigen. Sie sind diejenige in der Kommission, die versucht, mit den ihr zur Verfügung stehenden Instrumenten gegen den Bruch der Rechtsstaatlichkeit vorzugehen. Dafür werden Sie von sogenannten Parteifreunden in Ungarn mit kübelweise Schmutz übergossen. Sie bekommen inzwischen Drohbriefe. Herr Kollege Ferber zum Beispiel, aus Bayern, finden Sie das akzeptabel?

Meine Damen und Herren! Ich weiß, dass diese infringement procedures bisher zu nichts geführt haben. Das zeigt die ganze Hilflosigkeit der Kommission, es zeigt auch unsere Hilflosigkeit. Wir werden im Juli über den Bericht zu Ungarn abstimmen. Dann werden wir zeigen müssen, mit welchen Mehrheiten wir die Europäische Union dagegen wappnen wollen, dass es in Ungarn, aber auch in anderen Ländern, schwer ist mit dem Respekt der Grundrechte und mit dem Respekt der Rechtsstaatlichkeit. Wir werden große Mehrheiten brauchen, damit Rat und Kommission sich mit diesem Problem anders beschäftigen.

Ich sage Ihnen aber auch: Viele Bürgerinnen und Bürger, viele Verfassungsjuristen verstehen nicht mehr, warum wir seit zwei Jahren viel darüber reden, was in Ungarn passiert, aber warum wir uns einfach nicht entschieden können, mit welchen Mitteln wir dagegen vorgehen können. So einleuchtend die Forderung nach Artikel 7 scheint, es ist tatsächlich wie mit einer Atombombe: Man hat sie, aber man kann sie eigentlich auch nicht einsetzen.

(Beifall)

  Lajos Bokros, az ECR képviselőcsoport nevében. – Magyarország kormánya három éve szabadságharcot vív az Európai Unióval. Miért kell harcolni azzal a közösséggel, amelybe hazánk népszavazás nyomán lépett be, amely a demokrácia, az alkotmányos jogállam, az emberi és polgári jogok értékközössége? Erre egyetlen logikus válasz adható: a magyar kormány nem osztja ezeket az értékeket! A nyugati demokráciák hanyatlásáról beszél, és a keleti, tekintélyuralmi rendszerekben látja a jövőt. A Fidesz-rezsim Magyarországon is tekintélyuralmi rendszert épít. Ezért alkotta meg az új, egypárti alaptörvényt és számos sarkalatos törvényt. Ebbe a sorba illeszkedik az Alaptörvény negyedik módosítása.

Az alkotmányos jogállam lebontását Magyarországon befejezettnek lehet tekinteni. A 15 hónap alatt végrehajtott négy módosítás közül az utolsó a legsúlyosabb. A Fidesz azt állítja, hogy mindenki félreérti, vagy félremagyarázza a változásokat. Szerinte a kormány nem tett mást, mint az alaptörvény átmeneti rendelkezéseit – amelyeket az Alkotmánybíróság csak formailag kifogásolt – beírta az Alaptörvénybe. A tények ezzel szemben gyökeresen mást mutatnak. Az alaptörvény negyedik módosítása sok olyan változást tartalmaz, amelyeknek nincs közük az Alaptörvény átmenti rendelkezéseihez. Olyan rendelkezésekről van szó, amelyeket az Alkotmánybíróság tartalmi okokból semmisített meg. A negyedik módosítás megtiltja az Alkotmánybíróságnak, hogy az Alaptörvényt vagy annak módosításait tartalmilag vizsgálja. Ezentúl bármilyen rendelkezés beírható az Alaptörvénybe. Akár az is, hogy a jelenlegi Országgyűlés mandátuma húsz évre meghosszabbodjon.

Megszűnt az érdemi alkotmánybíráskodás lehetősége, mert az Alkotmánybíróság hatáskörei tartalmilag kiürültek. Ráadásul az elmúlt 22 év alkotmánybírósági határozatait megsemmisítették. Az Alaptörvény maga vált alaptörvény-ellenessé. Egymásnak súlyosan ellentmondó rendelkezéseket tartalmaz. Már nem képes betölteni az alkotmány szerepét. A Fidesz-rezsim visszatért a kommunista alkotmányfelfogáshoz. Eszerint minden hatalom a dolgozó népé, amely ezt a hatalmat az Országgyűlés útján korlátlanul gyakorolja. Ki védi meg a magyar állampolgárokat a korlátlan hatalom önkényétől? A Fidesz őszinte véleménye szerint az Európai Unió és az Európa Tanács. Mi ebben sem értünk egyet a rezsimmel. Magyarországot saját népe fogja megvédeni és felemelni. Szabadság nélkül nincs kenyér!

  Zbigniew Ziobro, w imieniu grupy EFD. – Panie Przewodniczący! Szanowni Państwo! Mówicie tutaj Państwo o krytykach – pan Verhofstadt z taką emocją – o europejskich wartościach demokratycznych, które waszym zdaniem są naruszane na Węgrzech. Ale czy to jest szczere? Czy przypadkiem nie jesteście Państwo hipokrytami? Czy nie jest tak, że uczyniliście z Węgier przysłowiowego chłopca do bicia tylko dlatego, że ku waszej rozpaczy Węgry, naród węgierski, w wolnych, demokratycznych wyborach odrzucił promowaną przez Brukselę poprawność polityczną? Opowiedział się za konserwatyzmem, za wartościami chrześcijańskimi, które zostały wpisane do węgierskiej konstytucji, opowiedział się za opisaniem w tej konstytucji małżeństwa jako związku kobiety i mężczyzny, opowiedział się wreszcie za odrzuceniem kosmopolityzmu i postawił na tożsamość, wspólnotę i budowę sprawnego państwa. I do tego opodatkował wielkie korporacje międzynarodowe: banki, hipermarkety. Dość tego widać, trzeba było znaleźć tego chłopca do bicia, trzeba było go zaatakować.

Uznałbym wasze argumenty za szczere i intencje za prawdziwe, gdybyście z taką samą miarą podchodzili do naruszeń standardów demokracji w innych krajach, jak np. w Bułgarii, Polsce. Sam wielokrotnie na tej sali – również do pana Verhofstadta, do pana Martina Schulza – kierowałem pisma , w których informowałem, że po zdobyciu władzy przez Platformę Obywatelską masowo zwalniano z mediów publicznych dziennikarzy tylko dlatego, że byli krytyczni wobec władzy, że brytyjska firma medialna Mecom musiała odstąpić swoje udziały, wycofać się z Polski, ponieważ kierowała najbardziej opiniotwórczym dziennikiem krytycznym wobec władzy. Został on później przejęty przez , nawiasem mówiąc, prywatnego przyjaciela rzecznika rządu.

Władza blokuje w procesie cyfryzacji miejsce na multipleksie i chce usunąć z rynku katolicką stację telewizyjną działającą od 10 lat, ponieważ jest krytyczna wobec władzy. 2,4 mln podpisów, które złożyli obywatele nic was nie interesują. Kraj, który reprezentuje pani komisarz, ma 5 razy mniej obywateli niż liczba podpisów złożonych w formie protestu wobec dyskryminacji „TV Trwam”, krytycznej wobec rządu. Co pan Verhofstadt zrobił w tej sprawie? Zwracałem się do Pana. Jest Pan demokratą, chodzi Panu o wolność, czy o to, żeby atakować Węgry, bo są konserwatywne?

  Marie-Christine Vergiat, au nom du groupe GUE/NGL. – Monsieur le Président, on entend sur quelques bancs de cet hémicycle que la Hongrie serait victime de je ne sais quel complot de gauche et qu'on lui reproche des choses qui ne sont pas reprochées à d'autres. Tous ceux et toutes celles qui siègent, notamment, en commission des libertés civiles, de la justice et des affaires intérieures savent ce qu'il en est. Nous savons tous et toutes que les droits fondamentaux sont bafoués partout dans l'Union européenne et qu'ils le sont de plus en plus, comme l'atteste d'ailleurs l'augmentation incessante du nombre de condamnations des États membres par la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme.

Mais, d'une certaine façon, la Hongrie est un cas d'école. Et nous y avons déjà consacré beaucoup de temps, en plénière, en commission, mais aussi sur place, puisque j'ai fait partie de la mission qui s'est rendue en Hongrie, et je me félicite du climat de cette mission.

Ce qui nous occupe aujourd'hui est le quatrième amendement, autrement dit la quatrième révision constitutionnelle depuis l'entrée en vigueur de la nouvelle Constitution, en janvier 2012. Quatre révisions en quinze mois, cela fait beaucoup pour un texte fondamental. Et j'aurais tendance à dire que cela démontre par là même les mauvaises conditions dans lesquelles cette révision a été faite.

Sur quoi porte cette révision? Sur des mesures annulées par la Cour constitutionnelle. Et on nous répond que la Cour n'a jugé que sur la forme. Admettons! mais il est curieux de constater que ces dispositions sont désormais intégrées dans le texte constitutionnel et qu'elles ne pourront désormais plus être examinées par la Cour constitutionnelle.

Que concernent ces dispositions? La liberté d'expression, le fonctionnement de la justice, l'enseignement supérieur, les droits des sans-abris, la famille, la publicité politique. Je n'ai pas le temps de détailler, mais ceux et celles qui ont travaillé sur le sujet savent que, pour l'essentiel, le contenu de ces dispositions ne relève pas du champ constitutionnel. Elles ne sont là – je le répète – que pour échapper à tout contrôle de constitutionalité. Elles ne sont que la dernière illustration des dérives d'un régime qui estime que, parce qu'il a obtenu une majorité des deux tiers dans son parlement, il a tous les droits, alors que c'est l'inverse. Il a, au contraire, une grande responsabilité.

Ces dérives sont d'autant plus importantes que le gouvernement de M. Orban a été incapable d'enrayer la crise économique qui frappe son pays. 37 % des Hongrois vivent désormais dans une situation de pauvreté. 600 000 personnes sans emploi n'ont aucune aide sociale. Le pays compte 20 000 à 30 000 sans-abris et voit la recrudescence de maladies de pays en développement.

Alors, oui, un an avant les prochaines élections, le bilan de M. Orban est catastrophique. Et il court après les voix de l'extrême-droite, qui ne cesse de monter dans les sondages. On en connaît, on en a connu d'autres, et ailleurs, qui ont les mêmes pratiques.

Alors, non, nous ne devons pas accepter ces dérives, ni en Hongrie, ni ailleurs dans l'Union européenne. L'état de droit doit être respecté partout et nous manquons d'outils juridiques pour le faire. Une fois encore, je le redis, l'Union européenne serait plus crédible en matière de démocratie et de droits de l'homme si elle était capable de la même rigueur qu'en matière économique. On pourrait alors peut-être parler d'Europe politique.

  Krisztina Morvai (NI). - Mr President, I do not think I am terribly obsessed with papers and degrees, but still I was genuinely and deeply surprised to see on her official curriculum vitae that the ultimate authority in the European Union on justice and constitutional law affairs – Ms Viviane Reding – has, with all due respect to her, never studied a semester of law in her life, let alone having a law degree.

Similarly, Mr Tavares, who is the rapporteur on Hungary and who has been scrutinising and judging our legal system, has no background in law. I do not know if there is anybody in this room who would like to go to an operating theatre to be operated upon by people who do not have a medical degree. I think that for us Hungarians this is certainly not a very reassuring thing to know, and it would be lovely to know something about how exactly it works.

For one thing, there is nothing wrong with having these different backgrounds – Mr Tavares has a background in history and Ms Reding has a background in humanities – but you seem to have completely misunderstood the rule of law, the principle you keep referring to, and maybe that is an issue of legal background or no legal background.

For us lawyers, the essence of the rule of law is that it is the opposite of arbitrariness, and what you have been doing here in the context of the war on Hungary for several years now is exactly that: arbitrariness that has nothing to do with the rule of law.

The rule of law means that there are rules that are predictable, foreseeable and certain: substantive laws as well as procedural laws. You keep referring to European values in general without referring to the norms, but what exactly are those predictable, foreseeable, certain norms? That is what the rule of law is about.

Similarly, you have been carrying out this examination on Hungary without clarifying your own rules. We have no idea: do you keep changing your rules and keep making up new rules on your way?

My other point is that this has nothing to do with the rule of law, so please do not teach us about the rule of law without being bound by the principles of the rule of law yourself. Thank you.

  Rui Tavares (Verts/ALE). - Senhor Presidente, eu gostaria de pedir à Câmara que me desse um minuto porque a nossa colega Morvai pôs em causa a seriedade técnica do trabalho que temos estado a desenvolver há já um ano com cinco documentos de trabalho sobre as questões jurídicas e constitucionais na Hungria. Gostaria de lhe pedir a si, Senhor Presidente, que me desse apenas um minuto para explicar de que forma é que esses documentos foram feitos e de que forma é que eles foram juridicamente assegurados, inclusive pelos próprios serviços desta Câmara, porque não se pode aceitar que, desta forma ligeira, se ponha em causa a seriedade do próprio Parlamento.

  Der Präsident. − Herr Tavares! Ich kann Ihnen jetzt nicht eine Minute Redezeit geben. Ich verstehe Sie. Da Sie selbst namentlich angesprochen worden sind, können Sie nach der Geschäftsordnung am Ende der Debatte für drei Minuten das Wort ergreifen. Sie müssen das aber nicht so tragisch nehmen. Man muss nicht Jurist sein, um als Gesetzgeber tätig zu werden, und man muss kein abgeschlossenes juristisches Studium haben, um hier in dieser Gesetzgebungskammer zu arbeiten. Das ist im menschlichen Leben auch so. Man muss nicht Brückeningenieur sein, um über einen Fluss zu fahren und eine Brücke zu benutzen, und auch nicht jeder Mediziner versteht jede Rede. Das ist so.

Da Sie aber selbst angesprochen worden sind, können Sie am Ende der Debatte von diesem Geschäftsordnungsartikel Gebrauch machen.

  Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the Commission. − Mr President, I have heard with great interest the intervention of this Parliament. The Commission is waiting for the report of Mr Tavares and his group, which will come out in June. I think this very serious report will then be the basis for an informed debate in this House, leading maybe (depending on what the House decides) to conclusions which the House thinks it can draw from the very excellent work done by the parliamentarian.

In general, in our democracy it is of course up to a Member State to decide on the need for constitutional reform, but this reform has to be carried out with full respect for the values on which the EU is founded, in particular respect for the rule of law, and these are inscribed in our Treaties and are not debatable. The Treaties have not come out of the blue. They have been decided by all the countries together and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is the equivalent of a treaty.

We also know from our Treaties that, if the system of checks and balances required by democratic principle is at stake and there is a risk of serious breach of our values, then it is for Europe to intervene. This is inscribed in Article 7. This is a very strong article, and I agree with Mrs Harms that it is a kind of atom bomb which you have but which you think twice or three times about using. That is why I think we need to go beyond the specific situation and see what lessons we can draw from what we have discussed now and what we discussed all the other times we have been discussing these problems.

The Union needs a better-developed set of instruments in order to allow for better intervention if there are problems like the ones we have decided on today. I think we have all read the letter from several ministers of foreign affairs, who are calling for an intermediate instrument between Article 7 on the one hand (the atomic bomb) and the infringement proceedings – the method which the Commission has at its disposal in order to bring a country before the Court of Justice – on the other.

I know there will be a discussion in the General Council. We have heard from the Minister that there will be a specialised conference on this topic in Ireland, and I believe that the Commission, as well as the European Parliament, will work towards issuing of the report on proposals in that respect in June.

The Commission remains seriously concerned about the compatibility of the Fourth Amendment with the principle of the rule of law and will wait for the Venice Commission and the European Parliament in June. It will make its contribution to the work that is under way on the basis of the Treaties, by means of these two instruments.

More specifically on what I have already put on the table: I did not only speak about the past two cases which we brought to the court, I also spoke about the analysis we have done on the Fourth Amendment, the legislation which comes out of the Fourth Amendment and the analysis we are doing at the moment on at least three elements of law in order to see if we can go for infringement proceedings. We will not wait until June before we embark on infringement proceedings; we just need to look at the latest documents we have received from the Hungarian authorities to analyse them in a very down-to-earth and juridical way in order to see what we can take to court.

I believe this was an introduction to what we are going to do in June or July – it is up to the Parliament to decide – but the two reports will be of the utmost importance. Until then the infringement proceedings by the Commission will be on the table, and I hope that the infringement proceedings which have been decided by the Court of Justice will be put into practice in Hungary.

  Lucinda Creighton, President-in-Office of the Council. − Mr President, having made my position clear earlier, I have taken good note of the range of views which have been expressed during the debate.

Many of you have made clear the strong views which you hold about the most recent amendments to the Constitution, which were introduced last month. As I said earlier, it is up to the Commission to give an assessment of these amendments and to consider the extent to which they respect the values on which the European Union is founded. I think Vice-President Reding has set that out quite clearly.

I was specifically asked a few questions by Mr Swoboda, and I would like to respond, firstly, to the question of whether the Council has a clear position. As I said in my introductory remarks, the Council has not discussed this matter; therefore, I cannot do so. I am constrained, as I cannot articulate a position that has not been formed. It is not my place to do so, and I have no mandate to do so.

As for the second part of Mr Swoboda’s question, regarding whether we support the position of the Commission, of course the Presidency supports the position of the Commission as laid down by the Treaties. The Commission is currently conducting its detailed legal analysis, and we support that process without any shadow of a doubt. That is, of course, the role of the Commission, and I take that very seriously.

As I said, the Presidency has already agreed to set aside time at the next meeting of the General Affairs Council, which will take place next Monday, to discuss the request addressed to the Commission by a group of four Member States to look at the possibility of a new mechanism for safeguarding fundamental values. I am sure that the Commission will wish to share some of its thinking with the Council. I look forward to the opportunity to have that discussion next week. I can only assure Parliament that I will make sure that the various views that have been expressed here inform the discussions which will take place in the General Affairs Council on Monday.

ΠΡΟΕΔΡΙΑ: ΑΝΝΥ ΠΟΔΗΜΑΤΑ
Αντιπρόεδρος

  Rui Tavares (Verts/ALE). - Madam President, I would also like to thank Vice-President Reding, Minister Creighton and all our colleagues for the debate today; it was a very important one. This debate concerned the values on which the Union was founded – democracy and the rule of law. The question is: do we take them seriously or not?

I want to assure Parliament that, both in our trip to Budapest and in the five working documents that we have produced, we have been taking them very seriously. We have been helped by the technical services of Parliament. At issue here is the fact that – for our citizens, for the Member States and for the Union – an institution which fails to take seriously the values enshrined in the Treaties will fail in its historical responsibilities. European, Hungarian and indeed all European citizens must be assured that this institution will not fail them.

  Πρόεδρος. - Το επόμενο σημείο είναι οι δηλώσεις του Συμβουλίου και της Επιτροπής σχετικά με την κατάσταση στην Κύπρο

Γραπτές δηλώσεις (άρθρο 149)

  Luís Paulo Alves (S&D), por escrito. – Os líderes políticos da Hungria já há muito que desrespeitam o direito europeu no domínio das liberdades e garantias do seu povo, bem como no que se refere ao funcionamento das suas instituições democráticas, nomeadamente no que toca à independência do banco central, às autoridades de proteção de dados e às medidas relacionadas com o sistema judiciário. Já por várias vezes este Parlamento e alguns dos meus colegas se manifestaram em relação a esta matéria que deve ser tratada com a máxima urgência. Para além dos problemas já referidos, há outros sobre os quais o Parlamento já se pronunciou, como a legislação sobre a comunicação social ou sobre os direitos humanos de uma maneira geral. É importante denunciar de forma clara a situação dos direitos civis na Hungria, através de iniciativas que contem com a participação de representantes de instituições europeias e internacionais, da sociedade civil e do governo húngaros. Claro que devemos evitar passos que mobilizem os húngaros contra a Europa, mas esta é uma liderança que não serve os valores da Europa e a UE tem de o dizer a uma só voz, sem hesitações.

  Cristian Silviu Buşoi (ALDE), în scris. – Situaţia constituţională din Ungaria ridică evidente semne de întrebare. În anul 2010, FIDESZ, în fruntea căruia se află Viktor Orban, a câştigat alegerile pentru Parlamentul Ungariei cu o majoritate de 53% din votul popular, care, conform sistemului electoral maghiar, s-a transformat într-o supermajoritate de 68% din totalul numărului de parlamentari. Ceea ce a urmat după instalarea Guvernului Orban a reprezentat o avalanşă de amendamente aduse constituţiei Ungariei, multe dintre ele părând să favorizeze puterea executivă şi partidul aflat la putere. Fie că vorbim de legea electorală, care a fost şi declarată neconstituţională de către Curtea Constituţională a Ungariei, fie că discutăm de iniţiative absurde de criminalizare a persoanelor fără adăpost sau de legi care restrâng libertatea presei este destul de clar că situaţia constituţională actuală din Ungaria nu este una liniştitoare. Noua constituţie a Ungariei a fost criticată, pe rând, de către Parlamentul European, Statele Unite ale Americii, Consiliul Europei, Comisia Europeană, diferite state membre, precum şi de diferite organizaţii care luptă pentru drepturile omului, pentru faptul că ar oferi prea multă putere partidului aflat la guvernare. În consecinţă, consider că institutiile europene trebuie să se sesizeze pentru a cerceta eventualele abuzuri şi derapaje democratice ale executivului maghiar.

  Monika Flašíková Beňová (S&D), písomne – Situácia v Maďarsku je neakceptovateľná. Parlament, v ktorom koalícia premiéra Orbána disponuje dvojtretinovou väčšinou, v marci opäť novelizoval ústavu krajiny. Prijaté zmeny ma viac ako znepokojujú, a nie som jediná: novela vyvoláva znepokojenie doma i v zahraničí. Mám na mysli napr. obmedzenie právomocí ústavného súdu a rovnako tak opätovné zavedenie opatrení označených súdom za protiústavné. Sama EK vyzvala Maďarsko, aby dodržiavalo demokratické zásady, a to ešte pred schválením predmetného zákona. Rovnaký názor ako ja má aj Rada Európy, či vysoký predstaviteľ OSN pre ľudské práva. To, čo si dovoľuje Orbánova vláda, nemá v modernej demokratickej spoločnosti obdoby! Nezávislosť Maďarska je vážne ohrozená. Maďarský parlament pozostávajúci z prevažujúcej ústavnej väčšiny jednej politickej strany vyvíja neustále snahy o pretransformovanie mnohých kompetencií pod centralizovanú kontrolu vládnucej triedy. Schválená novela prináša nehoráznosti v podobe ďalšieho oklieštenia právomocí ústavného súdu, kriminalizácie bezdomovcov, zavádza predpoklady na užšie spojenie cirkví so štátom a priamu kontrolu/ovládanie školstva, osobitné neprimerané zdaňovanie občanov mimo rozpočtu a zasahovanie do nezávislosti médií počas volieb. Zákon stanovuje výslovnú možnosť obmedziť právo na slobodu prejavu v prípade, ak bude narúšaná dôstojnosť maďarského národa alebo dokonca článok ústavy zriaďujúci parlamentnú gardu/stráž, zodpovednú priamo predsedovi parlamentu.

  Lívia Járóka (PPE), in writing. – I would like to welcome the fourth amendment of the new Hungarian Constitution, which provides for the opportunity of effecting civil actions against manifestations violating the dignity of communities. This legislative package codifies the findings of the Hungarian Constitutional Court’s resolutions of 1992 and 2008, as well as following the 1997 recommendations of the Council of Europe on tackling hate speech. By its entry into force on 1 April, Hungary has joined the 14 European countries prohibiting hate speech. The amendment also completes legal protection regarding the dignity of communities by supplementing the provisions of the Penal Code concerning incitement and violence against members of communities. Furthermore, the provision protects freedom of speech at the same time by entrusting the tackling of hate speech to civil law instruments, which impose fewer limitations.

  Béla Kovács (NI), írásban. – A Jobbik kíméletlen ellenfele a Fidesz-kormánynak, ám a külföldi rágalomhadjárat hazánk ellen irányul, ami ellen kötelességem fellépni. Az EP-ben is láttam, hogy finn képviselők frakciójukból kiszavazva összefogtak nemzeti ügyben. Ad egy: az alkotmányunk a belügyünk. Ad kettő: a negyedik módosítást nem utasítottam volna el. A Jobbik tartózkodott, mert azt ígértük, hogy pártpolitika helyett megszavazzuk, ami nemzetünknek jó, de legalábbis nem akadályozzuk egy olyan csomag elfogadását, amely nagyrészt jó. Talán e teremben sokaknak nem tetszik, hogy az alkotmánymódosítás szerint a család alapja a férfi-nő házasság. De az európaiak többségének tetszik, az önök sirámai pedig nem érdekelnek. Tudom, a tolerancia bajnokai a hagyományos családmodellt nem tolerálják, vagyis kirekesztők. A diplomásoknak legyenek kötelezettségeik, amennyiben ingyenes képzésben tanultak: helyes, és a magánügyünk! Az egyházak parlamenti elismertetése miatt aggódnak? Belgiumban is így van, mégsem támadják. Nem tetszik a választási regisztráció? Nekem sem. De Angliában súlyos pénzbüntetést kaphat, és nem voksolhat, aki nem küldi vissza a nyomtatványt! Mégsem hívják tetemre Londont. A hajléktalanok témája: lehet, hogy Barroso úr imád hajléktalanokon átesni, de mi nem. Nyeljék ezt le, vagy bátorítsák a hajléktalanok letelepedését a Bizottság előtt. Szlovákia megfosztja állampolgárságuktól kisebbségi magyar polgárait, ha felveszik a magyar állampolgárságot! Eközben a Bizottság gondja a választási regisztráció. Ez kettős mérce, szégyelljék magukat!

  Franck Proust (PPE), par écrit. – J'ai suivi avec beaucoup d'attention les déclarations du Conseil, de la Commission, et de mes collègues députés au sujet de la situation en Hongrie. Toutes les dérives totalitaires du gouvernement de Viktor Orbán me choquent profondément et m'inquiètent. Cela fait deux ans que cette situation perdure. Deux ans que se succèdent les discussions, les rappels à l'ordre, les décisions de la Cour de Justice, sans que le gouvernement Orbán ne retrouve pour autant la raison. Pire, ce dernier nous nargue en projetant d'instaurer une taxe pour payer l'amende imposée par la Cour de Justice. Cela revient à dire que les Hongrois, déjà fortement lésés par cette constitution liberticide, devraient en plus supporter la charge financière des violations du droit européen de l'État ! Nous nous devons d'agir. Les valeurs de l'Union, les droits fondamentaux que nous défendons sont bafoués. Je suis atterré quand je vois des divisions au sein même du Parlement sur ces questions! La frilosité est mauvaise conseillère. Agissons pour mettre un terme à ces dérives de manière définitive.

  Monika Smolková (S&D), písomne – Už v júni 2011 som upozorňovala na problematické znenie maďarskej ústavy, kde sa hovorí o zodpovednosti Maďarska za všetkých Maďarov, o jednotnom maďarskom národe, o kolektívnych právach, o samosprávach v zahraničí na etnickom princípe, o priznaní volebného práva zahraničným Maďarom. Toto všetko má vážne exteritoriálne následky. Benátska komisia síce spochybnila princípy demokracie, ale to bolo všetko. Dnes sme svedkami, že vláda Viktora Orbána už štyrikrát mení ústavu, ktorou uberá na práve vlastným občanom. Ustanovenia o študentoch, o bezdomovcoch, o obmedzovaní slobody slova, diskriminovaní cirkví a hlavne obmedzovaní nezávislej justície sú jasným dôkazom, ako sa spochybňuje právny štát, právo EÚ i štandardy Rady Európy. Dnes je viac než jasné, že nestačia vyjadrenia hovorkyne EK, že dúfa, že Maďarsko bude zachovávať prijaté záväzky a národný právny systém bude pretvárať v súlade s literou a duchom právneho systému EÚ. Ale je najvyšší čas nasmerovať to, pani Reding, k právnemu štátu. Hrubé signály antisemitizmu, ktoré vláda toleruje nielen na verejnosti, na vysokých školách, ale aj v parlamente, naznačujú, že je tu riziko, a preto treba prijať okamžité opatrenia.

  Csaba Sándor Tabajdi (S&D), írásban. – A MSZP és annak európai parlamenti delegációja elveti az uniós alapszerződés 7. cikkelyének bármilyen formájú alkalmazását, mivel az nem alkalmas a magyarországi demokratikus deficit kezelésére. Jogosnak és megalapozottnak tartjuk az Unió által megfogalmazott aggodalmakat a magyar jogállamiság állapotával, illetve a nemrégiben elfogadott negyedik alkotmánymódosítással kapcsolatban. Egyetértek azzal, hogy, próbáljuk meg útját állni a Fidesz féktelen törvénykezési gyakorlatának, amely mára lebontotta a jogállamiságot, a fékek és ellensúlyok rendszerét. Szorgalmazzuk, hogy a Viviane Reding által kezdeményezett igazságügyi szemesztert mielőbb terjesszük ki valamennyi alapjogra, és hozzunk létre megfelelő szankcionálási mechanizmust. Az Alkotmánybíróság hatásköreinek korlátozásával az Orbán-kormány utolsó jogállami kontrollja is megszűnt. Ez azonban nemcsak a jelenlegi magyar demokráciára nézve veszélyes, hanem magára a mindenkori hatalom számára is. Elfogadhatatlan, hogy a hibás kormányzati politika következtében nemzetközi bíróság (Európai Bíróság) döntéséből fakadó kötelezettséget a magyar emberek fizessék meg. A tisztességes politikai versenyt kérdőjelezi meg a választásokon, hogy a kormány által totálisan manipulált és ellenőrzött közmédiában lesz csak lehetőség választási hirdetésekre. Az emberek pártatlan bírósági eljáráshoz való jogát megkérdőjelezi, hogy az Országos Bírósági Hivatal elnöke ügyeket helyezhet át. Az utóbbi két rendelkezés újabb módosítása – miszerint a hirdetési tilalom és a bírósági ügyek áthelyezése – nem vonatkozik az Uniót érin ... (csonka szöveg)

  Josef Weidenholzer (S&D), schriftlich. – Die Situation in Ungarn beschäftigt uns schon viel zu lange. Seit mehr als einem Jahr müsste die ungarische Regierung eigentlich bemüht sein, die Sorgen der Mehrheit des Europäischen Parlaments ernst zu nehmen. Leider ist sie davon ziemlich unberührt. Zwar werden in einigen Fällen verbale Zugeständnisse gemacht, gleichzeitig aber Schritte gesetzt, die den Geist der Verträge herausfordern, wie etwa die 4. Verfassungsänderung. Der Machterhaltung dienende nationalistische Parolen nach außen und nach innen schaffen ein Klima, das Ungarn immer weiter von Europa entfernt. Europäische Werte und Prinzipien werden verletzt und systematisch gering geschätzt. Diese bedauerliche Entwicklung betrifft nicht nur das Verhältnis der Union zu Ungarn, sie ist von grundsätzlicher Bedeutung für die Zukunft des europäischen Projekts. Der Ausschuss für bürgerliche Freiheiten wird dem Plenum einen auf der Basis von Fakten erstellten Bericht vorlegen. Schon jetzt ist aber eine klare Botschaft in Richtung der politisch Verantwortlichen in Ungarn notwendig: Nehmt endlich unsere Bedenken ernst, im Interesse Ungarns und im Interesse unseres gemeinsamen Europas. Wir haben keine Zeit für Machtspiele, die aus bloßem innenpolitischen Kalkül erfolgen.

  Πρόεδρος. - Το επόμενο σημείο στην ημερήσια διάταξη είναι οι δηλώσεις του Συμβουλίου και της Επιτροπής σχετικά με την κατάσταση στην Κύπρο (2013/2603(RSP))

  Lucinda Creighton, President-in-Office of the Council. − Madam President, honourable Members, the agreement of a Cypriot macroeconomic adjustment programme has been the focus of much energy and attention over recent weeks.

I feel it is important at the outset again to recall that I am here as a representative of the Council, and I am happy to be here in that capacity to discuss this matter. However, the discussions surrounding Cyprus were not conducted under the stewardship of the Irish Presidency but rather under the stewardship of the President of the Eurogroup. So, as I do not speak for the Eurogroup, I am clearly somewhat constrained in the contribution that I can make to this important debate.

I think there is very little – if any – disagreement that the situation in Cyprus is extremely regrettable, and the human consequences of it for the Cypriot people are the most regrettable elements of all. It is important to emphasise – and for us to note, I think – that the situation in Cyprus was, and is, exceptional. A combination of a number of factors, including the size of the financial sector, the nature of the risks assumed and other issues, including supervision issues, left the country particularly vulnerable to financial market turbulence.

When two of Cyprus’s largest banks ran into trouble, the cost of recapitalising them was such that Cyprus was left with little alternative but to seek assistance from other euro area Member States. To resolve an exceptional situation, country-specific measures for a macroeconomic adjustment programme were agreed by the Troika and the Cypriot authorities, and subsequently by the Eurogroup. I do not intend to comment in depth on those measures, but elements of the programme include a restructuring of the banking sector, an audit of the anti-money-laundering framework, fiscal consolidation and economic restructuring.

On the basis of the programme, the euro area agreed – in principle – to provide up to EUR 10 billion in financial assistance to Cyprus, subject to the IMF’s contribution. The Eurogroup has since been able to welcome a staff-level agreement between Cyprus and the representatives of Troika institutions on the policy conditionality underlying the macroeconomic adjustment programme.

National procedures required for the approval of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) financial assistance can now be launched. I understand that what is now envisaged is that a final agreement by the ESM board of governors should be reached by the end of April, and that the first ESM disbursement is scheduled for mid-May.

Clearly, the road ahead for Cyprus will be very challenging. But this should not prevent us from recognising that these measures, however difficult, grant real assistance to Cyprus – assistance which is absolutely necessary, both to allow Cyprus the chance to get its public finances and economy back on a sustainable path and to safeguard stability inside the monetary union. This is both in the Cypriot and in the European interest.

While the news in recent weeks may have been about Cyprus, it is true to say that the wider difficulties we have faced in a number of euro area countries have taken place against a backdrop in which financial turmoil has exposed significant weaknesses in our monetary union. As the Presidency, as you know, our focus has been in advancing the measures which are designed to redress those shortcomings. This effort goes to the heart of the Union’s efforts to restore stability.

Above all, this has meant working on banking union, work in which we would want again to acknowledge the central role and constructive engagement of the European Parliament.

In adopting that focus, our Presidency has followed the lines of the priorities outlined by the European Council. Banking union is important because it will reinforce confidence in Europe’s banking system and its supervision. It will also help to break the link between sovereigns and banks and to foster the reintegration of financial markets.

During the Irish Presidency, good progress has been made on the banking union dossiers. To date, the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD IV) proposal has been finalised and the agreement on the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is currently being finalised.

Political agreement on the SSM was reached at the informal Ecofin Council in Dublin last week, where ministers also reaffirmed their commitment to the urgent completion of all the agreed elements of banking union, and this will continue to be a major priority for us in the weeks and months ahead. The setting up of the supervisor will also pave the way for the European Stability Mechanism to take on the direct recapitalisation of banks.

The remaining elements of the banking union package include the Bank Recovery and Resolution (BRR) proposal, consideration of which has been accelerated by the Irish Presidency to meet the June deadline which was set by the European Council for its agreement with the European Parliament. Bank Recovery and Resolution will lay the foundation for a Single Resolution Mechanism, a detailed proposal which we expect to see published by the Commission very shortly.

  Olli Rehn, Olli Rehn, Vice-President of the Commission. − Madam President, Honourable Members, as President Barroso is attending the funeral of Baroness Thatcher today, I am presenting the Commission’s views in this important debate together with my colleagues Joaquín Almunia and Michel Barnier, with whom we have worked very closely as a team over the past years.

We are about to finalise a support programme for Cyprus. It will enable Cyprus to avoid a disorderly default, with all its dramatic ramifications for the Cypriot people. This marks the beginning of a joint effort to bring Cyprus onto the path of sustainable growth and job creation.

The process that led us to this agreement has been very difficult, and not without mistakes. The Cypriot authorities, the Member States and the European institutions had to find unique solutions to exceptional problems. They had to do so without previously tested instruments and, in the final stages of negotiations, under enormous time pressure.

Thus, there are at least two key lessons to be learned from this difficult process. First, there must be absolute clarity about secured deposits. In this respect, the Eurogroup and Cyprus took rapid corrective action and underlined that secured deposits are indeed secured in Europe.

Second, the developments in Cyprus demonstrate the reasons why a banking union is a necessary element of a true economic and monetary union. We need a well-functioning Single Supervisory Mechanism with a single rulebook to prevent the emergence of an unsustainable banking sector, as happened in Cyprus. And we must ensure that, even if reinforced supervision fails, we have a Single Resolution Mechanism to provide the instruments for a timely and effective restructuring and resolution of problem banks.

But those instruments are not yet in place, and in this process we had to work with the less adequate ones that we have at present. The problems of Cyprus had built up over many years. At their heart was an oversized banking sector that thrived on attracting foreign deposits with very favourable conditions. These capital inflows also contributed to a property boom and the accumulation of external imbalances. In fact the depth of the banking problems stemmed from poor risk management practices. Lacking adequate oversight, the two largest Cypriot banks were allowed to build far too concentrated risk exposures. It was the problems in these banks which caused the troubles for sovereign debt and the economic decline of Cyprus – not the other way round.

In November 2011, the Commission notified the Cypriot authorities that a financial assistance programme would be unavoidable unless the persistent economic problems were immediately addressed. Eventually, Cyprus asked for financial assistance, but only in June 2012. After half a year of talks, a staff-level agreement on the necessary structural reforms and fiscal measures was reached. Many of them, including anti-money laundering measures, were adopted by the Cyprus Parliament before the end of 2012.

The Commission’s aim during the whole process of agreeing a support programme for Cyprus has been threefold: to help Cyprus onto the path of sustainable growth, to preserve financial stability in Cyprus and in the eurozone and to protect the integrity of the euro and the single market.

The Commission’s preferred scenario was a more gradual adjustment of the Cypriot banking system and real economy, while ensuring debt sustainability. However, there was a very firm financial constraint. The euro area Member States were ready to commit official support up to EUR 10 billion, whereas the total financing needs had been estimated at EUR 17 billion. This constraint severely limited the options available.

As time was running out, the scenario of the more gradual economic adjustment was not on the cards any more, unfortunately. The state of the banks deteriorated rapidly. Soon it became clear that the second biggest bank, Laiki, had to be resolved immediately. The risk of a complete collapse of the entire banking system – and thus a sweeping loss of deposits and savings and a disorderly sovereign default – was indeed very real. That would have been a disaster for Cyprus and for the Cypriots.

Without a bank resolution law and without a programme in place, the Cypriot banks remained closed and the bank holiday was extended. The Cypriot authorities imposed capital controls to avoid the flight of deposits.

The Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, is closely monitoring the impact of capital controls in Cyprus. The temporary restrictions were justified in the circumstances, but they are a very serious limitation on the free movement of capital. Therefore, the Commission will ensure that these measures last no longer than strictly necessary.

The support programme will enable Cyprus to restore the health of the economy and to create a more sustainable economic model. I agree with the Minister of Finance of Cyprus, Haris Georgiades, who said yesterday that he wants to shun the blame game and focus on the future. He said as follows: ‘We are determined to adopt and implement all those reform measures which we should have adopted a long time ago, but we failed to do so’.

We now have to concentrate all our efforts to facilitate the emergence of new sources of economic activity and to alleviate the social consequences of the economic shock.

The Commission decided in March to set up a Support Group for Cyprus to assist with the implementation of the adjustment programme. We are now mobilising our resources to provide technical assistance. The Support Group will rely on expertise from across the Commission services. The immediate priority is to identify the relevant resources available from the current structural funds.

The Commission stands by the Cypriot people in these challenging times; we are committed to help Cyprus to get through the tough times and overcome the current difficulties. I trust that we can count on the support of the European Parliament in together mobilising the available resources for Cyprus, as quickly and as effectively as possible.

Mr President, I am looking forward to a forward-looking and constructive dialogue on the subject.

  Jean-Paul Gauzès, au nom du groupe PPE. – Madame la Présidente, Madame la Présidente du Conseil, Monsieur le Président de la Commission, Monsieur le Commissaire, la situation de Chypre est catastrophique. Chypre est aujourd'hui au bord de la faillite et le peuple chypriote souffre. Un accord européen sur les grandes lignes d'un programme d'ajustement économique a été trouvé, vous venez de le rappeler; il reste à le mettre en oeuvre, ce qui est loin d'être simple. Chacun doit être conscient que ses conséquences pour le peuple chypriote seront importantes.

Sans revenir sur l'ensemble des causes de la situation à Chypre, je voudrais insister sur deux d'entre elles. En premier lieu, l'insuffisance manifeste de la vigilance des institutions européennes. Il n'y a eu aucune intervention efficace pour prévenir ou limiter les risques prévisibles d'une économie déséquilibrée par l'excroissance de l'activité financière. Ce secteur est, à l'évidence, surdimensionné – 120 milliards d'euros d'actif – par rapport à l'économie de l'île, puisqu'il représente sept fois son PIB.

Il n'y a eu non plus aucune intervention efficace pour contrer les décisions du gouvernement chypriote d'alors qui aboutissaient à dissimuler la réalité et à se soustraire à tout contrôle en recherchant, en Russie, des soutiens financiers. Or, ces soutiens avaient pour conséquence d'augmenter les risques au-delà du raisonnable.

En second lieu, un comportement particulièrement risqué des banques chypriotes qui ont commis de graves erreurs. Elles ont, par exemple, acheté plusieurs centaines de millions de dettes grecques à un moment où tous les détenteurs les revendaient à la hâte.

À ce stade, nous devons, sans complaisance, tirer les leçons de cette crise. À défaut de plus de solidarité et de transfert institutionnalisé, l'Union européenne ne peut tolérer des spécialisations économiques qui mettent gravement en péril la situation du pays considéré.

Deuxième leçon: l'intervention de l'Union européenne doit se faire dans la transparence, mais aussi avec la volonté d'expliquer et de faire comprendre ces décisions à l'ensemble des citoyens. Or, à cet égard, le comportement collectif des ministres des finances a été à l'origine d'un fiasco catastrophique. Je ne mets pas en cause le fond, mais la méthode de communication. Les citoyens ont perçu le premier plan comme un hold-up qui pouvait les frapper tous dans l'Europe entière. Alors comment ensuite être crédible? L'annonce par l'Eurogroupe du plan de sauvetage chypriote s'est faite dans de très mauvaises conditions, que l'urgence n'excuse pas. Cela a contribué à jeter le discrédit sur l'Europe, la politique économique européenne et le système de résolution des crises bancaires auquel s'attache le commissaire Barnier.

L'Union européenne ne peut plus tolérer une disproportion manifeste entre le poids d'un pays et la prépondérance d'un secteur économique quasi-unique. C'est un facteur considérable de risque. La crise chypriote, après d'autres, nous montre qu'une économie qui comporte un secteur bancaire hypertrophié n'est pas viable sur le long terme. Il faut mettre en œuvre des mesures empêchant les États de se spécialiser dans un seul secteur d'activité, à défaut d'un transfert comme cela se passe dans un État national. À cet effet, le plan d'aide européen impose à Chypre de réduire son secteur bancaire hypertrophié. C'est une bonne chose.

Par ailleurs, des réformes structurelles sont nécessaires pour construire les fondations solides de l'économie et retrouver une croissance durable sur le long terme. Il est également nécessaire de mettre en place le plus rapidement possible l'union bancaire et le mécanisme de surveillance unique. La situation de Chypre montre qu'une surveillance directe de l'Union européenne sur les banques de la zone euro est un élément clé pour éviter des crises similaires à celle de Chypre.

L'Union doit également régler en son sein la difficile question des réglementations fiscales qui s'écartent d'une raisonnable moyenne et qui créent des paradis fiscaux. L'harmonisation fiscale est nécessaire.

Cette crise nous montre aussi que nous devons aller plus vite vers plus d'Europe. Plus d'Europe, c'est une Europe plus approfondie, plus solidaire, mais aussi mieux contrôlée. Les outils nécessaires ont été laborieusement mis au point, vous y avez fait allusion, Monsieur le Commissaire Rehn, il faut les utiliser désormais rapidement et dans un esprit de bonne coopération entre les États. Notre devoir aujourd'hui est d'abord de rétablir la confiance du peuple chypriote grâce à une Europe solidaire. Nous devons soutenir le peuple chypriote et, à cet égard, nous faisons confiance au nouveau gouvernement de Nikos Anastasiades pour mettre en place les mesures nécessaires au rétablissement, avec des finances publiques saines et une stabilité financière.

À cet effet, les règles d'utilisation des fonds européens doivent être assouplies pour que ces fonds soient rapidement efficaces. Et bien évidemment, Monsieur le Vice-président, nous nous associons à la volonté de la Commission d'utiliser tous les moyens possibles pour trouver, dans le cadre juridique actuel, les mesures et ressources qui pourront être accordées à Chypre, notamment dans le budget qui est à l'étude.

  Πρόεδρος. - Κυρίες και κύριοι συνάδελφοι, δεν έχουμε τη δυνατότητα να δεχθούμε ερωτήσεις με γαλάζια κάρτα διότι, όπως σας ανέφερα προηγουμένως, θα διεξαχθεί η πανηγυρική συνεδρίαση με τον Πρόεδρο της Ιρλανδίας και δεν υπάρχει διαθέσιμος χρόνος.

  Hannes Swoboda, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Madam President, Commission Vice-President, you said mistakes have been made. Well, grave mistakes have been made; mistakes which should never have been made. I do not know about your personal role: there are many rumours, but that also shows the lack of transparency. However, you should never have agreed to the attack on deposits below the EUR 100 000 limit. That is not acceptable.

(Applause)

It has destroyed all confidence and trust in the promises of the European Union. Therefore I think we should change the whole structure of our policies and of the methods.

As I said, Commission Vice-President, yesterday, we may not like – and we very often disagree with – your policies, but you are democratically elected. You are responsible to this Parliament; the Troika is not. Stop the Troika! We do not need the Troika; it is not necessary.

(Applause)

Are you aware of the rude behaviour of the Troika? Do you know how they treated the elected President of Cyprus? Ask them, and ask the Cypriot representatives. The Troika’s rudeness to the elected representatives and to the citizens of Cyprus and other countries is not acceptable.

Let us stop the Troika. You and your colleagues are responsible. You are democratically legitimised, and we want to speak with you about that.

We do not need IMF loans. Mrs Lagarde says one thing and the IMF representatives do something else. You have to coordinate, of course, with the ECB, but we have to change.

We also have to change our attitude in Parliament. We should create a sub-group or a subcommittee, or whatever institutional option we decide on, to deal with the euro issue, because we need a real dialogue between the Commission, the Council and the Eurogroup and also with Parliament, and we have to be ready for that dialogue.

Thirdly, I really must say that some members of the Council – like Mr Schäuble –make comments that are of a neo-colonial nature, talking down to the citizens. This is not acceptable. Mr Schäuble should instead be trying to ensure that we get a real banking union and a single resolution mechanism. He is already making difficulties, saying that perhaps the Constitution will need to be changed. It is already clear that there is no willingness, at least before the election. Maybe there will be after the election, but that is not acceptable; we need an efficient and viable banking union.

My last point is that Cyprus has potential. Cyprus has good people, who want to go for innovation and the diversification of the economy, and they will have income from gas and oil. Give them the time and the possibility to develop an alternative economy. Yes, they need to reduce the banking sector and they need diversification; but we are here to help them – we are here to help the Cypriot people and not to dominate them.

  Guy Verhofstadt, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Madam President, I think everyone accepts that the way in which we handled the Cyprus crisis over the last weeks and months was a disaster. It is naturally not very reasonable, or very fair, that we are saying that to you, Mr Rehn. It should be the Eurogroup sitting there and hearing our assessment of how the Cyprus file has been handled, because it has given the impression that Europe is failing.

But what is failing is in fact the bad intergovernmental system that we have today, whereby 17 Ministers of Finance have to deal, case by case, now with Cyprus, previously with Ireland, then Portugal, and tomorrow maybe with Spain or Italy. How does it work? We know they wait until the last moment. That is their first rule. The second rule is that they meet at the end of the week or the beginning of the weekend under the pressure of the opening of the markets on Monday. Then they take a decision, case by case and under pressure, thinking they have solved the problem.

I think that what we have seen in the case of Cyprus is proof of the fact that, regarding these problems, we need to have, as soon as possible, a European Resolution Fund, a European mechanism and no longer a case-by-case approach, as we have seen today. I urge you, Mr Rehn, to come forward as fast as possible with a proposal. I know that Mr Barroso told us that a proposal would be on the table before June. With such a European Resolution Fund it should be the banks which are paying contributions in relation to their risk profile, with a savings bank paying a lower contribution and an investment bank, with a high risk, paying a higher contribution.

At any rate an end should be put to the game that you are playing at the moment whereby, in every interview, we are asking who has to pay the bill. Is it the taxpayers, the depositors, the shareholders or the bondholders? I think all these are bad solutions. The only good solution is the European Resolution Fund, whereby we make an insurance system with contributions by the financial sector itself. My request to you, Mr Rehn, is that you speed up that proposal. Do not wait for the green light from Berlin and Paris this time. Put it on the table as soon as possible so that Parliament and the Council can start.

In the meantime – and this is my second point – I want to know what went wrong in the case of Cyprus. We have asked for hearings in the ECON Committee. We shall organise that on 25 April, because there are a number of questions – questions that have been answered today. Who proposed this levy on small depositors, which I think was the worst idea ever? Why did the President of the Eurogroup, Mr Dijsselbloem, say that the Cyprus crisis is systemic? We have a European Systemic Risk Board. What were they doing? If the crisis is systemic, then the ESRB should have done something. Otherwise, why do we need an ESRB? What was the role of the Troika in the sale of the Cypriot banks? Finally, a difficult question for the ECB: how does the emergency liquidity assistance operate in the Cyprus issue? Because that was used as long as 18 months ago.

We need these answers. We need to create transparency about what happened, from lessons learned. That is absolutely necessary. If there is no sufficient answer at the hearings of the ECON Committee, my group will call for the immediate setting up of a parliamentary inquiry committee to shed light and find answers to these and other questions.

  Daniel Cohn-Bendit, au nom du groupe Verts/ALE. – Madame la Présidente, chers collègues, je ne vais pas répéter, car j'y souscris totalement, ce qu'ont dit mes prédécesseurs sur la gestion de la crise. Toutefois, quelques questions restent en suspens.

Dix-huit mois! Cela fait dix-huit mois que l'on sait que la crise chypriote est imminente et qu'elle sera de plus en plus dure. Dix-huit mois! Pendant ces dix-huit mois, combien d'argent a pu repartir de Chypre pour ne pas être pris au dernier moment? Maintenant, on a pris des décisions mais je suis sûr que les malins qui allaient à Chypre pour ne pas payer d'impôts sont repartis depuis longtemps. Qu'en est-il des banques étrangères, des filiales des banques étrangères à Chypre? Qu'ont-elles fait? Parce qu'il y a, d'un côté, les banques chypriotes et, de l'autre, les filiales des banques étrangères qui organisent l'évasion fiscale, et pas seulement à Chypre mais sur la planète. Qu'en est-il?

On a un nouveau modèle en Europe. Après le too big to fail, c'est too small to bail. Voilà où nous en sommes. Monsieur Rehn, arrêtons de parler maintenant de perspective économique durable. Si vous voulez parler de perspective: il y a une perspective pour Chypre – ce n'est pas la seule, il n'y a jamais une seule perspective – mais pour cela il faut que l'Europe se mobilise. La perspective pour Chypre, c'est l'unification de l'île. Voilà un projet économique: donner la possibilité à des investisseurs de l'économie la plus dynamique dans la région – la Turquie! – d'investir. Les entrepreneurs turcs n'investiront à Chypre que s'il y a l'unification. Par conséquent, un modèle économique passe par l'unification de l'île, une unification intégrée dans l'Union européenne. C'était la première chose.

Deuxièmement – cela a été dit tout à l'heure –, que cela nous plaise ou non en tant qu'écologistes, la perspective première de l'économie pour Chypre, c'est évidemment le gaz et le pétrole. Les questions qui se posent sont les suivantes: qui et comment? On les aide parce que c'est une perspective. Il y a donc le tourisme, le gaz et le pétrole.

Ce sont là deux moments difficiles parce que contradictoires. Il y a la nécessité de l'unification de l'île. Et il y a la nécessité d'arriver à un moment où, justement, parce que nos négociations avec la Turquie avancent, les Turcs se sentent de nouveau aspirés par l'Europe et ont donc beaucoup plus que les Russes intérêt à investir à Chypre.

Tout ce développement pour dire que nous tous, ici, nous devons comprendre que la perspective de Chypre nous oblige à revoir aussi nos rapports avec la Turquie. Ce n'est plus un problème idéologique, c'est un problème de perspective de toute une partie de l'Europe. C'est valable pour l'économie de Chypre, c'est valable pour l'économie grecque! L'économie grecque ne repartira que si elle est intégrée dans un développement économique de la région. Quelle est cette région? Quelle est la force économique qui peut aider ce départ? C'est la Turquie!

Vous voyez que nous devons, ici, ensemble, aller beaucoup plus loin que de discuter simplement d'une chose nécessaire, à savoir un nouveau modèle de gestion des banques.

  Jan Zahradil, za skupinu ECR. – Paní předsedající, Kypr je další zemí eurozóny, která se ocitla v problémech, nutno říct vlastní vinou. Zcela jistě to není země poslední. Přestože je to specifický případ, tak je jenom důkazem, že tyto krize jednotlivých zemí eurozóny se liší, že mají různé příčiny a že vedou k různým důsledkům, a měly by tedy také existovat různé recepty na jejich řešení, což se bohužel neděje.

Odpověď Evropské unie, evropských institucí není diverzifikovaná, je univerzální, protože se pohybujeme v eurozóně, takže jde o masivní finanční pomoc, opět o uvolňování velkých finančních prostředků mimo rozpočet. Jde o nadirigovaná fiskální opatření, zejména rozpočtové restrikce, a jde o zavedení nových regulačních celoevropských opatření, jako je bankovní unie. V případě Kypru bylo navrženo jedno velmi nešťastné opatření, od kterého potom bylo naštěstí upuštěno, a to byla konfiskace části soukromých vkladů v bankách, což je nepřijatelné, na tom se tady asi shodneme všichni.

My ale vidíme, že eurozóna je potenciálně nestabilní, že má prvky nestability zabudovány přímo systémově v sobě a že v časech krize tato nestabilita jen vystupuje na povrch.

To, co se teď odehrává uvnitř Evropské unie, to není normální cyklická krize, která přijde a zase odejde, to je prostě systémová strukturální krize evropské integrace, kterou nelze léčit další evropskou integrací. Padá do toho jedna země za druhou. V případě Kypru je ještě možné použít tradiční řešení, ještě je možné použít tzv. bailout, protože Kypr je dostatečně malý, takže se to unese, někdo to zaplatí. Ale co se stane, až se do těch problémů dostane země, která je ekonomicky daleko silnější, větší a početnější, ať je to Španělsko nebo třeba Itálie? Co budete dělat potom, kde se vezmou peníze? Takové finanční prostředky Evropská unie a eurozóna prostě k dispozici nemají.

A ještě jedna věc mě znepokojuje: Kypr, jak se zdá, slouží jako záminka k útoku na daňovou suverenitu a daňovou autonomii jednotlivých členských zemí. Pod záminkou dalšího sjednocování a evropských řešení se tady útočí na právo každé země mít svoji vlastní daňovou politiku. To je pro nás absolutně nepřijatelné, protože daňová konkurence musí zůstat v jádru jednotného trhu, neboť zajišťuje ekonomický růst a konkurenceschopnost Evropy.

  Nigel Farage, on behalf of the EFD Group. – Madam President, 25 years ago Mrs Thatcher recognised the truth behind the European project. She saw that it was about taking away democracy from nation states and handing that power to largely unaccountable people. Knowing as she did that the euro would not work, she saw that this was a very dangerous design.

We in UKIP take that same view, and I have tried over the years in this Parliament to predict what the next moves would be as the euro disaster unfolded. But, even in my most pessimistic speeches, I would never have imagined, Mr Rehn, that you and those in the Troika would resort to the level of common criminals and steal money from people’s bank accounts in order to keep propped up this total failure that is the euro. You even tried to take money away from the small investors, in direct breach of the promise you made back in 2008.

The precedent has been set, and if we look at countries like Spain, where business bankruptcies are up 45 % year on year, we can see what your plan is to deal with the other bail-outs as they come. I must say, the message this sends out to investors is very loud and clear: get your money out of the eurozone before they come for you.

What you have done in Cyprus has actually sounded the death knell of the euro. Nobody in the international community will have confidence in leaving their money there. And how ironic to see the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, say of your actions: ‘I can only compare it to some of the decisions taken by Soviet authorities.’ And then we have a new German proposal that says that actually what we ought to do is confiscate some of the value of people’s properties in the Southern Mediterranean eurozone States. This European Union is the new communism: it is power without limits. It is creating a tide of human misery, and the sooner it is swept away the better.

And what of this place? What of the Parliament? This Parliament has the ability to hold the Commission to account. I have put down a motion of censure debate on the table. I wonder whether any of you have the courage to recognise it and to support it? I very much doubt that.

I am minded that there is a new Mrs Thatcher in Europe, and he is called Frits Bolkestein. He has said of this Parliament – remember, he is a former Commissioner – that it is not representative of Dutch or European citizens any more, and is ‘living out a federal fantasy which is no longer sustainable’. How right he is!

  Τάκης Χατζηγεωργίου, εξ ονόματος της ομάδας GUE/NGL. – Κυρία Πρόεδρε, αγαπητοί συνάδελφοι, θέλω κατ’ αρχάς να ευχαριστήσω τους ομιλητές που υποστήριξαν ουσιαστικά την Κύπρο - οι περισσότεροι αυτό έχουν πράξει. Θέλω όμως να πω ότι, κατά την άποψή μου, βρισκόμαστε και είμαστε μέρος ενός θεάτρου. Οι εκπρόσωποι εδώ του Κοινοβουλίου μας υποστηρίζουν, ιδιαίτερα αναφέρομαι στους εκπροσώπους του Ευρωπαϊκού Λαϊκού Κόμματος, αλλά όταν βρεθούν στις κυβερνήσεις τους κάνουν ακριβώς το ανάποδο. Χθες, μέσα σε αυτή την αίθουσα, ο κ. Daul ανέφερε ότι πρέπει να "αμοιβαιοποιηθεί" το χρέος στην Ευρώπη. Τι έκαναν όμως οι εκπρόσωποι του Ευρωπαϊκού Λαϊκού Κόμματος στις κυβερνήσεις τους όταν αποφάσισαν στo Eurogroup το κούρεμα των κυπριακών καταθέσεων; Αυτό που έκαναν, είναι ακριβώς το ανάποδο. Δεν πρέπει λοιπόν εδώ να πουλάμε "δημοφιλία" και όταν βρεθούμε στην κυβέρνησή μας να κάνουμε ακριβώς το αντίθετο. Και έχω την εντύπωση ότι και οι εκπρόσωποι της Επιτροπής, με όλον τον σεβασμό, υποδύονται και αυτοί έναν ρόλο σ' αυτό το θέατρο. Δεν ακούν τι λένε οι εκπρόσωποι των πολιτών μέσα στο Κοινοβούλιο. Αυτό που κάνουν είναι να περάσει η ώρα, να μας πουν κάποιες τυποποιημένες απαντήσεις και να πάνε στα γραφεία τους για να αποφασίσουν κάτι τελείως διαφορετικό από αυτό που σκέφτονται οι εκπρόσωποι των πολιτών.

Στον βαθμό που έχουν 'κουρευτεί', αγαπητοί συνάδελφοι, Ευρωπαίοι πολίτες, οι κυπριακές καταθέσεις, στον ίδιο βαθμό έχει 'κουρευτεί' η δημοκρατία στην Ευρώπη. Αυτό είναι πάρα πολύ σημαντικό, να το έχουμε κατά νου και η Κύπρος - σας το λέω ξεκάθαρα - μόλις μπορέσει να ορθοποδήσει, θα μελετήσει τη δυνατότητα να σας πει το μεγάλο "αντίο", ανεξάρτητα από οποιεσδήποτε συνέπειες, γιατί αυτό αποτελεί έκφραση αξιοπρέπειας. Γιατί, στη δύσκολη ώρα για την Κύπρο δεν υπήρξε ουσιαστική αλληλεγγύη. Η αλληλεγγύη που υπήρξε ήταν η αλληλεγγύη του λιονταριού μέσα στο δάσος, αλληλεγγύη απέναντι σε μικρότερα πλάσματα του δάσους. Θα έκανε το ίδιο to Eurogroup απέναντι σε μεγαλύτερο κράτος; Γιατί δεν το έκανε για την Ελλάδα, που είναι επίσης ένα μικρό κράτος; Μπορεί να το κάνει για την Ιταλία, την Ισπανία, τη Γαλλία ή για τη Γερμανία; Ποτέ! Το έκανε γιατί η Κύπρος είναι ένα μικρό κράτος. Αυτή είναι η αλληλεγγύη που γνωρίζουν.

Και, όσον αφορά την Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα και την "περίφημη" εποπτεία της: πού ήταν αυτή η 'εποπτεία' όταν η Λαϊκή Τράπεζα της Κύπρου επέκτεινε τις δραστηριότητές της στην Ελλάδα; Ποία ήταν αυτή η περίφημη εποπτεία που άσκησε; Άφησε τα πράγματα να εξελιχθούν από μόνα τους και δεν σκέφτηκε να επιχειρήσει 'κούρεμα' καταθέσεων στην Ελλάδα - και δεν τα λέω αυτά επειδή είμαι υπέρ αυτού, ασφαλώς και είμαι εναντίον - αλλά αν επιχειρούσε 'κούρεμα' καταθέσεων θα δημιουργούσε συστημικό κίνδυνο. Αυτή είναι η απόδειξη ότι έπραξαν κατ' αυτόν τον τρόπο επειδή η Κύπρος θεωρείται μικρό κράτος.

Μέχρι το τέλος του 2011, η Κύπρος είχε δημόσιο χρέος, σε σύγκριση με το ΑΕΠ, κάτω από τον μέσο όρο της ευρωζώνης: 77% η Κύπρος, 88% η ευρωζώνη. Αυτό αποδεικνύει ότι η κυπριακή οικονομία δεν πήγαινε λάθος. Είναι μια χούφτα τραπεζίτες και η έλλειψη εποπτείας από την Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα που έφεραν τα προβλήματα.

(Χειροκροτήματα)

  Laurence J.A.J. Stassen (NI). - De crisis in Cyprus bewijst voor de zoveelste keer hoezeer de euro niet deugt. Het is een verschrikking. Europa strompelt van crisis naar crisis, van bail out naar bail out, en het wordt van kwaad tot erger. Cyprus is alweer bail out nummer 5 en dat in drie jaar tijd!

De Europese Unie blijft doormodderen en trekt ons dieper en dieper het euromoeras in. Maar de EU weet het altijd nog erger te maken dan het al is. Want niet alleen verdwijnen er opnieuw vrachtladingen met belastinggeld, ook heeft de Eurogroep bij monde van haar voorzitter Dijsselbloem het vertrouwen en de bankgarantie voor spaarders om zeep geholpen.

De euro was al ten dode opgeschreven, maar nu is zelfs het spaargeld van de burger niet meer veilig. Spaarders in heel Europa beseffen dat wat vandaag op Cyprus gebeurt de volgende keer hun kan overkomen. Ondertussen is het niet de vraag of er nieuwe bail outs nodig zijn, maar wanneer. Cyprus heeft twee weken later alweer zes miljard euro extra nodig. Slovenië lijkt de volgende kandidaat voor een bail out. Er komt gewoon geen einde aan deze euro-ellende.

Met de euro heeft de Europese Unie de totale crisis over Europa afgeroepen. Gisteren nog maakte het IMF de verwachting voor de wereldeconomie bekend: 3,3% groei. Geweldig nieuws! Maar niet voor de eurozone! Hier voorspelt het IMF geen groei, maar economische krimp. Voorzitter, het is over en uit met de euro. De eurocrisis kan alleen worden aangepakt als Europese leiders onderkennen dat de euro zelf het probleem is. Als een land zijn eigen broek niet op kan houden, moet het de eurozone verlaten en de eigen munt devalueren. Dat is dan ook de enige optie voor Cyprus.

De bail outs zijn weggegooid geld en lossen helemaal niets op. Nederland moet daar geen geld meer aan verspillen en Voorzitter, één goede raad, red Europa uit de handen van de Europese Unie.

  Ελένη Θεοχάρους (PPE). - Κυρία Πρόεδρε, κύριε Υπουργέ, κύροι Επίτροποι, η οικονομική κατάσταση στην Κύπρο είναι όντως τραγική και η κυπριακή κοινωνία νιώθει βαθειά απογοητευμένη από την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση διότι η εφαρμογή της κοινοτικής αλληλεγγύης αποδείχθηκε στην πράξη γράμμα κενό. Η Κύπρος, παρόλα αυτά, σήμερα στρέφει το βλέμμα της στο Ευρωπαϊκό Κοινοβούλιο. Γι’ αυτό, ελπίζω να αποσαφηνίσουμε τι είναι κράτος δικαίου και ποιες είναι οι αρχές και οι αξίες επί των οποίων εδράζεται η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση.

Η Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία έχει, από την εγκαθίδρυση της, ορισμένα εγγενή προβλήματα τα οποία χειροτέρεψαν πάρα πολύ με την τουρκική εισβολή του 1974. Να σας θυμίσω ότι το 1974 η Κύπρος έχασε το 40% των εδαφών της, το 55% των ακτών της, το 90% της τουριστικής της υποδομής, τη μεγάλη εύφορη πεδιάδα της, ενώ το 40% του πληθυσμού της προσφυγοποιήθηκε και έκτοτε ζει σε προσφυγικούς οικισμούς τους οποίους, είμαι σίγουρη, ότι δεν τους έχετε δει ποτέ. Συνεπώς, η καλύτερη υπηρεσία και η καλύτερη επένδυση που μπορεί να προσφέρει η Τουρκία στην Κύπρο, κύριε Cohn-Bendit είναι να σηκωθεί και να φύγει. Γι' αυτό μην μας ζητάτε να εναλλάσσουμε την κατοχή της Τουρκίας με την οποιαδήποτε οικονομική κατοχή της Τρόϊκα, εκτός εάν η όλη κρίση έχει σκοπό να προωθήσετε την ένταξη της Τουρκίας. Γι’ αυτό, επιτρέψτε στην Τουρκία να κάνει επενδύσεις στις δικές σας μεγάλες και ισχυρές οικονομίες. Εμείς ξέρουμε τι είναι η Τουρκία και δεν θέλουμε να μας σώσει.

Μετά την εισβολή, η κυπριακή οικονομία μπόρεσε να αναπτυχθεί στηριζόμενη σε δύο μόνο πυλώνες: τον τουρισμό και τον χρηματοπιστωτικό τομέα. Δεν έχουμε βαριά βιομηχανία, ούτε γη για να αναπτύξουμε τη γεωργία. Ο τουρισμός, λόγω της γειτνίασης με εμπόλεμες ζώνες, δέχθηκε αλλεπάλληλα πλήγματα τα τελευταία είκοσι πέντε χρόνια και σας θυμίζω πόσες φορές εκδόθηκε ανακοίνωση για την επικινδυνότητα της Κύπρου επειδή γειτνίαζε με εμπόλεμες ζώνες στην περιοχή της Μέσης Ανατολής. Σήμερα, με τις αποφάσεις του Eurogroup δέχεται θανάσιμο πλήγμα και ο χρηματοπιστωτικός τομέας. Βεβαίως, αναγνωρίζω ότι έγιναν πολλά λάθη και αδικαιολόγητες ολιγωρίες από την πλευρά της Κύπρου όσον αφορά την αποτροπή της κρίσης και δεν έγιναν και οι αναγκαίες μεταρρυθμίσεις. Όμως, από την άλλη, είναι άδικο να τιμωρείται ο λαός με μια πρωτόγνωρη συνταγή αμφίβολης αποτελεσματικότητας στη λογική του 'shock therapy' λες και οι πολίτες είναι πειραματόζωα. Η συμπεριφορά της λεγομένης Τρόικα απέναντι στον κυπριακό λαό είναι σκληρή και απαράδεκτη. Κύριε Επίτροπε Rehn, γνωρίζετε ότι η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση έχει διαπράξει σοβαρά λάθη στον χειρισμό του προβλήματος της Κύπρου; Για παράδειγμα, ο κ. Draghi έδωσε ρευστότητα σχεδόν δέκα δισεκατομμυρίων στη Λαϊκή Τράπεζα χωρίς επαρκείς ελέγχους, ποσό που θα έπρεπε να είχε ανακτηθεί από τις διασφαλίσεις της ίδιας της τράπεζας και όχι να χρεωθεί στους καταθέτες. Σήμερα η αγορά δεν λειτουργεί. Οι πολίτες δεν πληρώνονται. Οι υγιείς επιχειρήσεις καταρρέουν και η εμπιστοσύνη προς το χρηματοπιστωτικό σύστημα της Κύπρου χάνεται, όπως χάνονται και χιλιάδες θέσεις εργασίας ....

(Η πρόεδρος διακόπτει την ομιλήτρια)

  Elisa Ferreira (S&D). - Bastou um dia para destruir a confiança, mas vai demorar anos para a reconstruir. Em Chipre aconteceu a tempestade perfeita e parecia que ninguém estava ao leme. Uma pergunta simples: onde estava a Comissão Europeia quando admitiu penalizar os depósitos inferiores a 100 mil euros? Quem assume hoje a responsabilidade? Há lições a retirar: a supervisão única tem de ser acelerada, as bolhas têm de ser rebentadas antes que rebentem por elas próprias e sirvam como desculpa para ações que nunca deveriam ter ocorrido. Em segundo lugar, é preciso definir uma política europeia para os depósitos, não só os que estão garantidos, mas também aqueles que passam acima dos 100 mil euros, porque não podem ser os contribuintes, mas também não podem ser os depositantes, a pagar os erros. Por isso, é urgente acelerar a legislação sobre a resolução europeia dos bancos, mas isso requer que haja um fundo de resolução financiado pelos próprios bancos na base do qual se faça a intervenção. E, por último, é altura de dizer basta. Basta de apatia relativamente ao combate, à fraude e à evasão fiscal e basta de evitar tratar o assunto central da coordenação fiscal dentro da zona euro.

  Sharon Bowles (ALDE). - Madam President, ‘act in haste, repent at leisure’ applies to those Eurogroup-cum-Troika meetings where what seems to be decided is that there will be a decision, even if it is a bad one. That is the terrible template.

Even since the abortive first Cyprus package, when Europe’s ‘best’ stood ready to allow a raid on insured deposits, there have been many suggestions on how to levy more fairly on deposits, or even to apply a wealth tax, which has precedents for some burden-sharing in difficult times as long as it is not discriminatingly targeted at deposits.

Retrospective interest taxes, putting some elements of deposits in escrow as an advance interest tax, and other such schemes could have raised funds from deposits without devastation, but you gave no time.

Many of Europe’s people now stand aghast at the final solution, where uninsured depositors have been treated differently, where businesses close and jobs are lost to protect taxpayers from sharing in losses of state-funded depositors. This does not make economic sense for future recovery, to say nothing of the loss of moral compass. Anyway, something will have to be done.

Finally, Cyprus teaches us that we need many clearer rules on bank resolution and hierarchy. But surely alarm bells should ring when liquidity operations for an individual institution become of the same order of magnitude as GDP. That is a recipe for moral hazard or behaviour more befitting loan sharks. Defence is in transparency. People – investors – need warning.

  Philippe Lamberts (Verts/ALE). - Madame la Présidente, bravo Sharon Bowles, je soutiens tout ce que tu as dit.

Monsieur le commissaire Rehn, je voudrais m'adresser à vous. Il y a un mois, avant ce fameux week-end, il fallait 17 milliards pour rendre la dette chypriote soutenable. La semaine dernière, on découvre que c'est 23. Petite erreur sans doute derrière la virgule... Alors faut-il penser que vos prévisionnistes sont incompétents? Je ne le crois pas. Je pense que ce sont des gens qui connaissent leur métier. Ou faut-il plutôt penser qu'on arrange les chiffres pour faire plaisir, pour que la réalité ait l'air plus jolie qu'elle ne l'est en vérité.

Tout cela pour permettre à certains, et je me tourne vers l'Allemagne, de pouvoir se tirer d'affaire sans trop de problème. Vous avez trafiqué les chiffres sur la soutenabilité de la dette grecque. Prévision après prévision, la DG ECFIN s'est trompée ou a fait semblant de se tromper sur la situation grecque. Ce que je veux vous dire, c'est que votre responsabilité n'est pas d'embellir la situation pour permettre à l'Allemagne de se tirer d'affaire, elle est de dire à tout le monde ce qu'est la réalité. Ensuite, que les politiques prennent leurs responsabilités.

VORSITZ: OTHMAR KARAS
Vizepräsident

  Derk Jan Eppink (ECR). - Mr President, let me say that I prefer a bail-in over a bail-out. The cost of saving banks should not be carried by taxpayers but by stakeholders above the deposit threshold of EUR 100 000. Those who have a stake in a bank, hoping for profits in return, should also carry the burden when losses are made. These losses should not be socialised.

Let me draw your attention also to another aspect, Mr Commissioner. What are the conditions Cyprus has to meet for softening the terms of a loan of EUR 2.5 billion it got from Russia? In the March issue of Jane’s Defence Weekly – as we know a reputable publication – it is reported that Russia is going to set up a navy taskforce in the Mediterranean. According to the Russian Minister of Defence, the force will require shore facilities. It did not specify where. So therefore I ask the Commission to ask Cyprus whether any deals relating to these issues were made with Russia.

  Mario Borghezio (EFD). - Signor Presidente, in occasione della conferenza stampa del 4 aprile il Presidente Draghi, ineffabilmente, si è molto infastidito alla domanda se la confisca dei conti a Cipro potrà essere, in futuro, un modello per tutta l'eurozona.

Di fatto, la direttiva ora in esame al nostro Parlamento prescrive, più o meno, esattamente quanto avvenuto a Cipro e Draghi, non a caso, ha sollecitato Parlamento e Consiglio ad approvarla a spron battuto, cioè già nel 2014.

In sostanza, questa direttiva prescrive che, quando la cancellazione del debito finanziario può minacciare la stabilità del sistema, quel debito deve essere pagato, ovviamente dai risparmiatori, così com'è avvenuto a Cipro.

Cipro dunque, se vogliamo essere seri e sinceri, rappresenta un test per capire se questi espropri possono essere realizzati dalla superburocrazia finanziaria che ci governa, senza creare problemi troppo gravi.

Realizzato questo precedente, che non esito a definire obbrobrioso, l'Unione europea si prepara a porre la Banca centrale europea sotto la vigilanza del creditore, la BCE stessa, che così potrà evitarne il fallimento. No, assolutamente no!

  Κυριάκος Τριανταφυλλίδης (GUE/NGL). - Κύριε Πρόεδρε, ο τραπεζικός τομέας στην Κύπρο, ο βασικός οικονομικός τομέας για την παραγωγή θέσεων εργασίας και ανάπτυξης, μετά το 'κούρεμα' έχει μειωθεί κατά 50%. Τί θα συνέβαινε αλήθεια εάν, με μια απόφαση της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, η αυτοκινητοβιομηχανία στη Γερμανία σημείωνε 50% μείωση πωλήσεων; Τί θα συνέβαινε στη Γαλλία εάν μειωνόταν η αγροτική παραγωγή της κατά 50%; Τί θα συνέβαινε στην Ολλανδία εάν οι εξαγωγές της μειώνονταν κατά 50%; Δυστυχώς, τα πράγματα για την Κύπρο είναι απλά. Δεν έχουν περιπλοκές και κρυφές εξόδους διαφυγής. Με μια πρωτοφανή σοφιστεία, το Eurogroup έχει τινάξει στον αέρα τον έναν από τους δύο τομείς για τη δημιουργία μισθών και θέσεων εργασίας της κυπριακής οικονομίας.

Θέλω να σας ρωτήσω, αγαπητοί συνάδελφοι: πόσο βιώσιμο μπορεί να είναι ένα χρέος σε μια χώρα που δεν έχει τη δυνατότητα για ανάπτυξη; Αγαπητοί συνάδελφοι, εάν δεν ανατραπεί αυτή η καταστροφική πορεία, οι συνέπειες δεν θα επηρεάσουν μόνο τον νέο, τον άνεργο, τον μικρομεσαίο στην Κύπρο, αλλά θα επηρεάσουν και όλες τις χώρες της δεύτερης και τρίτης ταχύτητας της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. Απευθύνομαι λοιπόν στο Συμβούλιο και την Επιτροπή και τους ερωτώ τι πρόκειται να πράξουν προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση της ανατροπής.

  Jean-Marie Le Pen (NI). - Monsieur le Président, Mesdames, Messieurs, la crise chypriote a révélé au grand jour le véritable visage de l'Europe technocratique. En quelques jours, à huis clos, la Commission, la BCE et l'Eurogroupe se sont arrogé le droit de bloquer les comptes bancaires, de spolier les épargnants et d'instaurer le contrôle des changes d'un État souverain sans même lui demander son avis. Mario Draghi, président de la BCE, n'a pas hésité à fermer arbitrairement le réseau international de transactions bancaires entre Chypre et le reste du monde.

C'est un acte sans précédent dans l'histoire de la construction européenne, car c'est une véritable mise à mort économique d'un État souverain. C'est, au regard du droit international, un acte de guerre. Pour maintenir de force Chypre dans la zone euro, la technostructure non élue a bafoué tous les traités européens. Elle a enterré les principes de libre-échange et de libre circulation sans le moindre scrupule. Qu'aurait-elle fait s'il avait fallu maintenir l'Espagne ou l'Italie dans la zone euro? Supprimer la démocratie? Menacer de l'envahir militairement? N'est-ce pas là la plus lumineuse démonstration de l'absurdité du projet européen? Il ne peut s'établir que par la négation des États et la suppression de la liberté. L'Europe technocratique est une entreprise tyrannique et de plus en plus violente, une entreprise d'asservissement des peuples européens. Voilà son vrai visage!

Il est temps, peuples européens, de stopper cette entreprise de malfaiteurs! Il est temps de voir se lever le printemps des peuples européens contre l'Union soviétique européenne!

  Giovanni La Via (PPE). - Signor Presidente, le difficoltà economiche affrontate dagli Stati membri, impegnati in sforzi di consolidamento delle finanze pubbliche, non devono far dimenticare che la via d'uscita dalla crisi è la crescita basata su riforme strutturali e su investimenti mirati.

Ma il momento di crisi in cui viviamo serve anche a ricordare che una delle ragioni che stanno alla base della nascita della creatura europea è la solidarietà tra i popoli e in tal senso ritengo che il pacchetto di salvataggio di Cipro sia un valido elemento.

Auspico che tutte le misure richieste siano efficacemente messe in campo al fine di assicurare la stabilità del settore finanziario e di porre in essere un'azione determinante sull'aggiustamento di bilancio e le riforme strutturali, in grado di sostenere la competitività del sistema Cipro, sul solco di una crescita sostenibile e stabile nel lungo periodo.

Accolgo le iniziative annunciate dal Commissario Rehn, ma chiedo allo stesso delucidazioni aggiuntive sulle misure che la Commissione intende concretamente mettere in campo per alleviare i problemi di Cipro, con riferimento al prossimo quadro finanziario pluriennale, come il pagamento anticipato dei Fondi strutturali previsti nel bilancio 2014-2020, l'aumento del tasso di cofinanziamento e con riferimento particolare alla possibilità di prevedere un'eccezione per la UIF garanty, al momento esclusa, così da dare respiro all'economia dell'isola. Inoltre, al ministro Creighton chiedo di fornire qualche informazione aggiuntiva sull'atteggiamento del Consiglio.

Concludo esprimendo fiducia sull'operato del nuovo governo cipriota del Presidente Anastassiades, che credo farà il massimo per riformare l'economia di Cipro.

  Antigoni Papadopoulou (S&D). - Mr President, Cyprus applied to the European Stability Mechanism for assistance because of the impairment of the Greek debt that cost Cyprus EUR 4.5 billion, or 25% of its GDP. Instead of solidarity, the Eurogroup punished Cyprus by destroying overnight its economic model. It imposed an unfair ‘haircut’, thus destroying the prosperity and aspirations of Cypriots, and spreading mistrust all over Europe.

The Eurogroup blackmailed Cyprus into choosing between bankruptcy or a haircut. It gave the new government no time to make reforms. It forced another Southern European country into the Troika’s arms and into a vicious circle of austerity, recession and unemployment. While the European Parliament has been excluded, the Troika – which has no democratic legitimacy – has been called in to rescue Cyprus by destroying its economy in order to save it. This is ironic.

I strongly protest against the unjust allegations against Cyprus and urge the Eurogroup, the Commission and the ECB to revoke their wrong decisions, to help Cyprus restart its economy with development projects for growth and jobs, to give adequate funding, to stop killing hopes and to stop experimenting with our lives.

  Françoise Grossetête (PPE). - Monsieur le Président, Chypre, la petite Suisse de la Méditerranée, s'effondre. Elle qui devait sa prospérité à ses banques. Chypre, moins peuplée que la ville de Marseille, mais dotée d'un secteur bancaire démesuré. Les responsabilités sont multiples et graves. Les autorités chypriotes qui, par le passé, ont été peu regardantes sur le comportement risqué des banques... bon courage au nouveau pouvoir en place! L'Eurogroupe, ensuite, révélant d'ailleurs l'incompétence de M. Dijsselbloem. La taxation des épargnants les plus modestes ne pouvait pas être la solution, car elle remet en cause la confiance des épargnants, avec le risque pour Bruxelles de créer un dangereux précédent inquiétant tous les peuples européens.

Le peuple chypriote souffre. Il souffre depuis longtemps pour les raisons que l'on connaît. Pourtant, Chypre a des perspectives économiques prometteuses. Mais, en effet, elle souffre de l'incapacité à résoudre sa partition. Mais veut-on vraiment résoudre le problème chypriote? La partie grecque de l'île, privée après 1974 de son agriculture et de son industrie, a dû développer son économie sur la finance et les banques.

Nous sommes tous responsables, y compris notre Parlement, qui préfère jouer la paralysie pour ne rien résoudre et ne pas répondre à l'attente du peuple chypriote. Pour sortir de la crise, l'île devra trouver un nouveau relais de croissance mais surtout, la spoliation d'épargnants innocents ne lui permettra jamais de sortir la tête haute de cette crise.

  Mojca Kleva Kekuš (S&D). - Če bi nam pred petimi leti kdo rekel, da bomo v Evropi reševali krizo z eksperimentalno, ad hoc, nedemokratično in popolnoma netransparentno politiko kriznega managementa, bi se seveda vsi uprli.

Danes se spopadamo z realnostjo, kjer trojka in euroskupina nevarno diktirata prihodnjo arhitekturo Evropske unije brez kakršne koli demokratične odgovornosti.

Alarmantne odločitve, ki so bile sprejete v luči reševanja Cipra, puščajo sled za sabo. Sledil je domino efekt, ki je zadel tudi Slovenijo.

Zato je ključno, da se špekulacije o tem, katera bo naslednja država padlih držav, čim prej prenehajo.

V Slovenijo so reforme potrebne, tega se zavedamo, in na temu delamo. Predlogi, usmeritve, koordinacije s strani mednarodnih inštitucij so zelo dobrodošle. Ampak vse to mora temeljiti na dejstvih, na faktih in ne na špekulacijah.

Makroekonomski indikatorji Slovenije so danes zelo jasni – javnofinančni dolg, stopnja brezposelnosti in raven skupnega zasebnega dolga so pod evropskim povprečjem – to so dejstva, to so fakti.

  Theodor Dumitru Stolojan (PPE). - Cipru are nevoie de întregul sprijin al Uniunii Europene şi eu doresc să mulţumesc comisarului Rehn, precum şi Comisiei Europene, pentru eforturile depuse în acest sens. Cred, de asemenea, că intenţia Comisiei Europene de a accelera folosirea fondurilor europene alocate Ciprului este un pas bun, în direcţia bună.

În acelaşi timp, nu pot să nu îmi exprim regretul pentru întârzierea cu care s-a acţionat în problemele financiare ale Ciprului, deşi semnalele existau de foarte multă vreme. Cred că, în acest sens, şi Banca Centrală Europeană ar putea da o serie de explicaţii.

Folosesc acest prilej pentru a ruga Comisia Europeană să depună toate eforturile ca măcar toate statele membre să accepte schimbul automat de informaţii cu privire la depozitele străinilor în băncile de pe teritoriul acestor state membre. Să nu aşteptăm revolta cetăţenilor europeni împotriva celor care îşi sustrag veniturile de la impozitare şi împotriva lipsei de acţiune a Comisiei Europene!

  Patrizia Toia (S&D). - Signor Presidente, il ventaglio dei danni alla credibilità e alla fiducia dell'Europa, provocati dalla disastrosa gestione della crisi cipriota, è molto lungo e pesante. E l'assurdo è che a provocarlo non è un'oscura forza antieuropeista ma sono organismi europei, che Commissione e Consiglio hanno lasciato fare senza prendere in mano la situazione e raddrizzare la barca.

Ora si afferma di aver imparato la lezione, però responsabili che paghino il conto degli errori non ci sono mai in quest'Europa e soprattutto non si vedono politiche reali, proposte di cambiamento. Io ne avanzo due.

La prima, suggerita dal capogruppo Swoboda: ripristinare democrazia e legittimazione. Non dobbiamo più permettere che l'Eurogruppo e soprattutto la Troika godano di questi grandi strapoteri. La Troika è un organismo che definirei imbarazzante e inaccettabile, composta da un rappresentante di un organismo di un'istituzione europea – la Commissione, che almeno riferisce al Parlamento – e da due esponenti – oserei dire, dipendenti – di organismi finanziari internazionali che utilizzano perlopiù risorse proprie. Tutto questo è inaccettabile.

La seconda proposta, avanzata dall'onorevole Ferreira: penetriamo negli impenetrabili

(Il Presidente interrompe l'oratrice).

  Lucinda Creighton, President-in-Office of the Council. − Mr President, I would like to thank you and the House for your indulgence. I have to accompany my President to a meeting with your President in a couple of minutes so that is why I have asked to take the floor slightly early. I think, however, that I have a very good sense of the broad spectrum of views here in the Chamber and I think I can draw possibly two very strong messages.

One is the very clear need to proceed with the commitment of last June’s Council to break the link between bank debt and sovereign debt. The second is to continue with our resolve to implement our commitments in respect of banking union. From our point of view as Irish Presidency – obviously I am speaking on behalf of the Council but, I think it is fair to say, also as an Irish Minister having experienced our own involvement with the Troika in the last number of years – it is absolutely essential that we now press ahead with the banking union’s other proposed elements, such as the recovery-in-resolution mechanism for banks, a Europe-wide resolution fund and the joint deposit guarantee scheme, and we need to accelerate that process. Certainly from our point of view we stand ready to cooperate and work intensively with the European Parliament on these proposals during the remainder of our Presidency.

These measures are quite clearly absolutely essential to ensure the long-term stability of our financial sector, which is of course a prerequisite for growth, which in turn is a prerequisite for job creation. Clearly there are no easy solutions to the current crisis but there are very logical steps that we can take – and indeed that we must take in order to rebuild the European economy – and I think that is our common cause and that is our joint agenda. So I look forward very much to working towards this objective with colleagues from the European Parliament, well into the future beyond the Irish Presidency of the European Union. Again, President, I would like to thank you for your indulgence in allowing me to conclude slightly early.

  Paulo Rangel (PPE). - Senhor Presidente, eu queria sublinhar que é evidente que para a crise da zona euro, e em particular para as crises bancárias, não há soluções fáceis e que o Eurogrupo e os diferentes governos da União Europeia e as instituições europeias têm vindo a afinar os critérios, mas do meu ponto de vista aquilo que se fez em Chipre representou um retrocesso e um erro monumental.

Isto significa, portanto, que, em vez de estarmos a progredir no estudo das soluções para facilitar a resolução da crise da zona euro, tivemos aqui uma regressão e ela não tem apenas efeitos em Chipre, ela tem efeitos em todos os países que estão sob ajustamento e terá, no futuro, sobre aqueles que estão supostamente a ajudar os países em ajustamento e é este ponto que eu gostaria de relembrar, quer à Comissão Europeia, quer ao Conselho Europeu e, em particular, ao Eurogrupo, é que nós temos necessidade estrita de encontrar uma solução europeia para os problemas dos países em ajustamento. Sem uma solução global não haverá resolução (...)

(O Presidente retira a palavra ao orador.)

  Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D). - Señor Presidente, Chipre es un país pequeño y el rescate también, pero el impacto de este episodio afecta a toda la UE en el peor momento posible. Cada vez más ciudadanos están enfadados con sus instituciones. Es un desastre sin paliativos.

Primero se da la impresión de que no cumplimos nuestras reglas, porque se bloquean ahorros y se les impone una quita; en segundo lugar se rectifica el tiro y se da la impresión de irreflexión y de precipitación; y, en tercer lugar, la política de comunicación es un desastre sin paliativos, pésima. Se dice que se sienta un precedente y que nuestros ahorros a partir de ahora ya no están seguros.

Las consecuencias son reales: a la semana siguiente se incrementa la prima de riesgo en países con dificultades en 150 puntos básicos, agravando la carga de los intereses de la deuda.

Alguien tiene que pagar cuando los errores son tan graves: los ministros que se sientan alrededor del Ecofin y, desde luego, el presidente del Eurogrupo, a quienes deberían destituir quienes les nombraron.

  Μαριέττα Γιαννάκου (PPE). - Κύριε Πρόεδρε, η κατάσταση στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση είναι πλέον γνωστή και στο Συμβούλιο και στο Κοινοβούλιο και στην Επιτροπή. Η λύση που επελέγη στην Κύπρο ήταν ένα πείραμα το οποίο δημιούργησε αμφιβολίες στους καταθέτες σε όλη την Ευρώπη για το εάν οι καταθέσεις τους είναι πλέον ασφαλείς, δημιούργησε ανησυχία και, φυσικά, την υποψία ότι εάν αυτό είχε συμβεί σε μια άλλη, μεγαλύτερη χώρα, σε μια βόρεια χώρα, δεν θα είχε επιλεγεί αυτή η λύση. Η λύση λοιπόν ήταν λάθος και καταστροφική. Έγινε βέβαια αποδεκτή, κατ' ανάγκη, από την ηγεσία της Κύπρου. Στην ουσία όμως, τιμωρήσατε μια νέα ηγεσία η οποία μόλις είχε εκλεγεί και υπονομεύσατε, κατά κάποιο τρόπο, το μέλλον της. Και αυτό πρέπει να γίνει μάθημα: ή μπορούμε να αντιμετωπίσουμε την κρίση συνολικά - γιατί το πρόβλημα είναι συνολικό, γιατί ο διεθνής ανταγωνισμός είναι συνολικός - ή δεν μπορούμε, ή δεχόμαστε και εφαρμόζουμε τις αποφάσεις μας, ή τις αναιρούμε. Πρέπει να διαλέξουμε.

  Catherine Trautmann (S&D). - Monsieur le Président, la situation de Chypre a exacerbé le débat sur la légitimité des décisions de la troïka, mais elle nous a imposé un constat terrible, celui de son inefficacité.

Ces trois institutions – BCE, FMI et Commission – impliquées dans le sauvetage des pays en difficulté peuvent-elles imposer de telles mesures d'austérité? Peuvent-elles proposer des actions qui pèsent tellement sur les citoyens qu'elles renforcent l'injustice sociale? Dans le cas de Chypre, en refusant dans un premier temps d'exclure les petits épargnants du dispositif, c'est un raisonnement exclusivement économique qui a été validé, laissant de côté tout principe de solidarité. Le modèle économique chypriote n'était pas soutenable, mais la restructuration initialement proposée, sans l'aval du Parlement, ne pouvait qu'aboutir à l'asphyxie de la population.

Aujourd'hui, la grande question, c'est la croissance et l'emploi pour la population chypriote et, pour l'Union européenne, la lutte pour la disparition des paradis fiscaux et la justice fiscale. C'est là que nous jouerons notre crédibilité et notre légitimité.

  Άννυ Ποδηματά (S&D). - Κύριε Πρόεδρε, υπάρχουν δύο ειδών προβλήματα στις αποφάσεις του Eurogroup για την Κύπρο. Το πρώτο αφορά τη δημοκρατική λογοδοσία, τη διαφάνεια, το έχουν επισημάνει πολλοί ομιλητές. Το δεύτερο αφορά κάτι που σας το επεσήμανα, αντιπρόεδρε Rehn και Επίτροπε Barnier, με επιστολή που σας έστειλα πριν από λίγες ημέρες και έχει να κάνει με τους κινδύνους που δημιουργούνται από την αποσπασματική, τιμωρητική, πειραματική και ισοπεδωτική εφαρμογή της διαδικασίας του 'bail-in' που, ως αρχή είναι μεν σωστή - η συμμετοχή δηλαδή του ιδιωτικού τομέα στο κόστος διάσωσης τραπεζών - αλλά πρέπει να αποτελεί έσχατο εργαλείο σε ένα συνεκτικό και συνολικό πλαίσιο εξυγίανσης τραπεζών το οποίο, όταν εφαρμόζεται με τρόπο ισοπεδωτικό, κινδυνεύει να δημιουργήσει πολύ μεγαλύτερα προβλήματα από αυτά που επιχειρεί να λύσει. Θέλω να σας ρωτήσω, αντιπρόεδρε Rehn, τι προτίθεστε να κάνετε για να αποτρέψετε την ενίσχυση της αβεβαιότητας και της ανασφάλειας κυρίως στις χώρες που αντιμετωπίζουν οικονομικές δυσκολίες και που έχουν ανάγκη από εμπιστοσύνη στο χρηματοπιστωτικό τους σύστημα;

Catch the eye

  Ανδρέας Πιτσιλλίδης (PPE). - Κύριε Πρόεδρε, περισσότερη Ευρώπη είναι η λύση. Μια ολοκληρωμένη και πραγματική ευρωπαϊκή ολοκλήρωση θα είναι η απάντηση σε αυτό από το οποίο υποφέρει ο κυπριακός λαός σήμερα και άλλοι ευρωπαϊκοί λαοί. Θέλουμε μια Ευρώπη αλληλεγγύης και όχι μια Ευρώπη ανταγωνισμών. Για αυτή την οικονομική κρίση βέβαια, η οποία δεν άγγιξε μόνο την Κύπρο, έχουμε ευθύνες και στην Κύπρο, ευθύνονται και κύπριοι τραπεζίτες αλλά και ευρωπαϊκές εποπτικές αρχές και πολιτικοί προϊστάμενοι στον τόπο μας. Όμως, για αυτά τα λάθη, σίγουρα δεν ευθύνονται οι ευρωπαίοι Κύπριοι πολίτες που σήμερα πληρώνουν το κόστος και οι οποίοι περίμεναν περισσότερη κοινοτική αλληλεγγύη αντί της χρεοκοπίας που βιώνουν.

Διερωτώμαι όμως, ποια χρεοκοπία είναι πιο επικίνδυνη: αυτή της Κύπρου και του λαού της, ή της ευρωπαϊκής αλληλεγγύης; Παρά το αίσθημα της κατάφορης αδικίας, ο κυπριακός λαός δεν θα βγει από την Ευρώπη, όπως άκουσα εξ αριστερών, αλλά θα παλέψει μέσα από την Ευρώπη για να την κάνει καλύτερη.

  Ana Gomes (S&D). - Mr President, in Cyprus, the Eurogroup has split the euro. Euro deposits there are worth less than 60% of similar amounts deposited in Germany. Do not tell us that everything has been done to fight tax evasion. Solution one caused the European deposit guarantee to implode, and then it compelled small depositors to allow the money-laundering business to go on. Solution two, when it came, had given most criminals enough time to organise capital flight.

Do not tell us that everything is now being done to accelerate the banking union. Why do you not, Commissioner, denounce the German Government, which is actively slowing it down to suit its own electoral calendar?

Commissioner Rehn, Commission, assume your responsibility, stop hiding behind the Troika. If you want to move against tax evasion and impose fiscal responsibility, why did you not lift a finger to stop capital flight from my country, Portugal? Why did you, instead, let the Troika bless a tax amnesty for tax evaders and other criminals...

(The Chair cut off the speaker)

  Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (ALDE). - Mr President, when I entered politics one of my biggest idols, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, defined as one of the cornerstones of the European Union respect for the right to sovereignty, especially for the small Members of the European Union. The Eurogroup did not respect this small Member State, Cyprus, and its sovereignty, nor the Cypriot economy and society. The Eurogroup should stop putting in danger this fundamental value of the European Union, namely respecting the sovereignty of the small. That is why we should respect Cyprus in order to safeguard the European Union.

  Νικος Χρυσόγελος (Verts/ALE). - Κύριε Πρόεδρε, είναι γεγονός ότι υπάρχουν ευθύνες γιατί δεν εντοπίστηκαν τόσο καιρό και δεν επιλύθηκαν εγκαίρως τα προβλήματα του κυπριακού τραπεζικού συστήματος και, από την άλλη, λήφθηκαν αποφάσεις αποσπασματικές χωρίς ένα σχέδιο που οδηγεί σε αλλαγές μέσα σε μια νύκτα μια ολόκληρη κοινωνία. Αυτά δεν μπορούν να γίνονται στην πολιτική. Υπήρξαν σπασμωδικές κινήσεις και από το Eurogroup και από την κυπριακή κυβέρνηση, διαχρονικά. Θα μπορούσαν να υπάρξουν όμως εγκαίρως στοχευμένα μέτρα με ευρωπαϊκή αλληλεγγύη και με δίκαιη φορολόγηση όσων επωφελήθηκαν πραγματικά από τη χαμηλή φορολογία. Έπρεπε να αντιμετωπιστούν τα προβλήματα του τραπεζικού συστήματος, αλλά σε βάθος χρόνου. Να αντιμετωπιστεί σταδιακά η φοροδιαφυγή. Χρειάζεται η Κύπρος, και ιδιαίτερα η κυπριακή κοινωνία, σίγουρα την αλληλεγγύη της Ευρώπης. Σίγουρα χρειάζονται κεφάλαια από την Ευρώπη σε ένα στοχευμένο σχέδιο διεξόδου από την κρίση που απαιτεί όμως χρόνο και διάλογο με την κοινωνία στην Κύπρο και, πραγματικά, πρέπει να βοηθήσουμε τις δύο κοινότητες να επανενωθούν για να αντιμετωπιστεί αυτός ο διχασμός, η διχοτόμηση του νησιού που υφίσταται εδώ και σαράντα χρόνια περίπου.

(Ende des Catch-the-eye-Verfahrens))

  Olli Rehn, Vice-President of the Commission. − Mr President, let me first of all thank you for a very substantive and serious debate and for your often very critical remarks. I have listened to you very carefully, and I can assure you that the Commission will take this very important debate into account. I will now make some short comments, and my colleague Mr Barnier will, for his part, continue on some important issues.

Firstly, I would like to speak about the specific nature of the Cyprus package, which has been referred to in many speeches during the discussion. The Cypriot agreement consists of an economic stabilisation programme that is grounded on the financial sector, conditionality, strengthening banks’ capital buffers, improving liquidity conditions, enhancing prudential regulation, and supervision. These are elements that have been common to all programme countries.

The bail-in of creditors is in fact less of a novelty than it might appear. After all, the Irish programme also included very strong own contributions by bank creditors – over EUR 5 billion of junior subordinated debt was bailed-in in Ireland. At the same time, Ireland’s pension reserve fund contributed close to EUR 10 billion.

Given the heavy reliance of Cypriot banks on deposits, a specific feature of the Cypriot case is that standard creditor contributions could only deliver a part of the funds needed. The bailing-in of uninsured deposits was a consequence of this. Given the unique nature of the Cypriot case, the approach followed in Cyprus should not be seen as a blueprint for any possible future activities. Indeed, there are no templates as such. While each programme may have its similarities, each is tailored to the needs of the country in question. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have all had very clear specific conditions which have been taken into account in the programme design.

Mr Lamberts referred to the programme’s cost, and I think that he has brought up a very important question. The confusion arises from the fact that two entirely different sets of figures are being compared – one net and the other gross. One is based on a set of assumptions from several months ago, while the other takes into account the most recent decisions and the most recent macro-economic projections. In other words, in public debate, in the media, people have, frankly, been comparing apples and pears and coming up with oranges. I shall refrain from remarking that this is what happens when stories are written based on leaked documents. If you look at these two figures of EUR 17 billion and EUR 23 billion to which Mr Lamberts referred, the difference is that the EUR 17 billion is related to net financing needs, while the larger figure that has been voted on, EUR 23 billion, relates to gross financing. Moreover, the larger number also includes additional buffers in the second Cypriot programme. The combined contribution to the programme from the ESM and IMF remains EUR 10 billion. There is, therefore, no change in the financial envelope available for Cyprus.

I would like to conclude by saying that the Commission urged Cyprus to take swift action as early as November 2011 and worked tirelessly to reach quick agreement on a programme over the last year. Unfortunately, this proved to be impossible. Within the constraints handed to us, the room for manoeuvre was very limited, and not to reach an agreement at all would have been the worst outcome of all. In this regard, I think that what Mr Swoboda, Mr Verhofstadt and Mr Cohn-Bendit said about the cumbersome and complex structure of decision-making within the eurozone is very important. Indeed, we need to continue to intensify the reform of the eurozone together in order to rebuild our economic and monetary union so that it is up to its task.

It is clear that the near future will be difficult. I will sum up. I am very much looking forward to continuing this discussion at the hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 25 April. I just want to say that the Commission will do everything possible to alleviate the social consequences and mitigate the impact on the most vulnerable in society. We will stand by the Cypriot people in these difficult times.

  Michel Barnier, membre de la Commission. − Monsieur le Président, Mesdames et Messieurs les députés, dans toutes ces crises, celle de Chypre dont nous avons parlé ce matin, et toutes les autres, il y a toujours deux temps pour l'action. Le premier temps est celui de l'urgence, de la réparation, j'allais dire – si je peux utiliser ce mot – de la chirurgie. Nous savons à Bruxelles, soyez-en assurés, les efforts qui sont demandés dans ce temps-là aux peuples européens.

Puis, il y a un autre temps, celui de la prévention et des leçons que l'on doit tirer. C'est précisément dans ce temps-là que se situent, non pas seulement mon action ou les propositions que je fais, mais votre action.

Chypre n'est sûrement pas un modèle mais il y a, à Chypre comme dans les autres crises, des leçons à tirer et nous les tirons une par une, semaine après semaine, depuis trois ans, ensemble.

Mauvaise supervision. Nous avons présenté la création des autorités européennes de supervision et, l'année prochaine au printemps, fonctionnera, enfin, une supervision intégrée dans la zone euro avec la Banque centrale européenne.

Mauvaise capitalisation des banques, bonus injustifiables et insensés, qui encouragent la prise de risque. Vous avez répondu sur la base du rapport de votre collègue, Othmar Karas. 608 d'entre vous ont voté hier un texte fondamental pour la robustesse des banques.

Puis, enfin, comme plusieurs d'entre vous l'ont dit, des outils clairement annoncés à l'avance pour la résolution, pour le bail-in, une boîte à outils complète. Je vous ai présenté il y a plus d'un an ce texte qui est en discussion actuellement et, au mois de juin, je vous présenterai la création de l'autorité européenne de résolution dans le cadre du traité actuel.

Mesdames et Messieurs les députés, la Commission ne laissera pas dire que nous ne réagissons pas, que nous ne tirons pas les leçons. Mais il est vrai que nous pouvons et que nous devons aller plus vite et que nous devons aller au bout de toute cette réforme le plus rapidement possible. Pour cela, la Commission et le commissaire qui s'exprime doivent continuer à pouvoir compter sur votre soutien.

PRESIDENZA DELL'ON. GIANNI PITTELLA
Vicepresidente

  Presidente. − La discussione è chiusa.

Dichiarazioni scritte (articolo 149)

  Bruno Gollnisch (NI), par écrit. – L’affaire de Chypre a montré le vrai visage de l’Union européenne : celui d’institutions technocratiques pouvant se montrer d’une brutalité incroyable pour mettre au pas les États, pour sauver leur monstrueuse création : l’euro! Union et BCE ont joué les pompiers pyromanes et le remède va rapidement s’avérer pire que le mal. L’annonce d’une taxation généralisée des dépôts bancaires, pourtant strictement interdite par la règlementation européenne, a précipité la chute des banques chypriotes. Sous la menace inouïe d’une asphyxie financière, les autorités chypriotes ont finalement accepté de couler la deuxième banque du pays avec des pertes, pour certains créanciers, pouvant aller jusqu’à 60 %. Le pays vit désormais sous le régime du contrôle des capitaux pour éviter leur fuite massive. Du coup, et ce n’est pas le moindre des paradoxes, il y a désormais deux euros! Le cataclysme économique créé par cette situation a eu un résultat tangible immédiat : pour éviter la ruine, ce n’est plus 17 mais 23 milliards d’euros que Chypre doit désormais trouver! Où? Comment? Le gouvernement chypriote aurait dû, comme il l’a envisagé un moment, sortir de l’euro. Faute de l’avoir fait, il va imposer à son peuple une saignée aussi douloureuse qu’inutile.

  Ivari Padar (S&D), kirjalikult. – Ühe väikese saareriigi – Küprose – pankade päästmise lõppfaasis jääb üle ainult kergendatult ohata. Mõistes küll eurogrupi presidendi Jeroen Dijsselbloemi motiive, rõhutan siiski vajadust pidada kinni fundamentaalsetest kokkulepetest, konkreetsemalt kohustusest garanteerida kuni 100 000 euro suurused hoiused. Sest just sellistest põhitõdedest kinnipidamine näitab, et pühendumus ühisrahale on enam kui sõnakõlks.

  Nuno Teixeira (PPE), por escrito. – O Chipre é o quinto país da União Europeia a enfrentar graves problemas financeiros, tendo necessitado da ajuda dos restantes países europeus para cumprir as suas obrigações nacionais e internacionais. Entendo que o resgate ao Chipre, no valor de 10 mil milhões de euros, não foi elaborado da melhor forma, não só em termos económicos, pois criou um alarme social quanto à segurança dos depósitos bancários, mas sobretudo a nível político, com vários líderes europeus a contradizerem-se sobre a mesma medida ser adotada em outros países. No entanto, importa salientar que foi encontrada uma solução que protege os bancos cipriotas de entrarem em processo de insolvência o que seria extremamente negativo para o país. Por fim, gostaria de sublinhar que o programa de ajustamento deve ter em linha de conta medidas de incentivo económico, por forma a que a economia cipriota não colapse à semelhança das restantes que estão a ser alvo de processos de ajustamento.

  Angelika Werthmann (ALDE), in writing. – The problem of financial instability has been known to all relevant parties for a long time. Two years ago I submitted a question to the Council – the answer was that there would be no need for further steps in the framework of a deficit procedure. Also two years ago, the Commission stated in response to my question analysing the severe deterioration of Cyprus’s economy, that the ‘downward trend will not continue’.

Looking at the development of Cyprus’s economy, today’s situation can be summarised by saying that 0.2 % of GDP can bring the Eurozone to the edge of the abyss. It is the Cypriot people who suffer the most from this development. Wrong decisions led to severe mistakes and the worst development for the Eurozone.

It would be politically correct to have a hearing with all parties concerned to avoid the development that has led to such a severe crisis. Now, however, the Commission is explicitly asked to take responsibility to support the Cypriot people: 1. Young people have to be given a perspective – find initiatives to support their education. 2. Employees as well as self-employed people have to be respected in their knowledge and capacities – let us support the SMEs.

  Inês Cristina Zuber (GUE/NGL), por escrito. – O modelo encontrado pelo Eurogrupo, as chantagens de «bancarrota» anunciadas pelo BCE (e pela UE, em geral) constituiu um ataque sem precedentes aos depósitos bancários dos cipriotas. No passado mês de março, os ministros do Eurogrupo decidiram encerrar o segundo maior banco do Chipre – o Laiki Bank – obrigando os titulares de depósitos, obrigações e ações acima dos 100 mil euros a sofrerem perdas que podem chegar aos 60 por cento, sendo que tal colocará em causa a existência de muitas PME cipriotas. Tentam-se justificar estas medidas acusando Chipre de ser uma "economia de casino", quando se ignoram destinos como a Madeira, o Luxemburgo ou a Holanda como preferenciais para a fuga de capitais. Concluímos que os depositantes nos bancos de Chipre têm um estatuto diferente dos depositantes britânicos e holandeses dos bancos islandeses. O memorando de entendimento com medidas até 2018 a troco de um empréstimo de 10 mil milhões de euros, negociado entre o governo reacionário cipriota e a troika constituirá um verdadeiro "pacto de agressão" contra o povo do Chipre, cortando nos salários e pensões, destruindo serviços públicos, procedendo a privatizações e condicionando, obviamente, a utilização, propriedade e destino dos lucros das reservas de gás recentemente descobertas. Toda esta ação é cínica e inadmissível.

  Presidente. − L'ordine del giorno reca il turno di votazioni.

(Per i risultati delle votazioni e altri dettagli che le riguardano: vedasi processo verbale)

- Prima della votazione sul paragrafo 315.

  Inés Ayala Sender (S&D). - Señor Presidente, en la versión española aparece Eurojust en vez de Eurostat, habría que cambiarlo.

  Presidente. − Grazie, on. Ayala, faremo questa modifica, terremo conto di questa precisazione.

- Dopo la votazione sull'insieme del testo

  Algirdas Šemeta, Member of the Commission. − Mr President, honourable Members, the Commission welcomes the European Parliament’s decision to grant discharge to the Commission for the implementation of the 2011 budget.

I am particularly grateful to the general rapporteur Jens Geier, and to the coordinators and shadow rapporteurs of the political groups, with whom we had a constructive cooperation throughout the whole discharge process.

Today’s vote acknowledges that the budget has overall been properly managed. It also points out that all actors involved in the management and control of EU funds have to make further efforts to ensure our programmes deliver value for money.

I also call on the co-legislators to take due account of the discharge resolution adopted today in the negotiations on the next financial framework. We cannot afford a new legal framework without the badly needed simplification and the necessary measures ensuring reform of the management of EU money and delivery of added value.

- Prima della votazione sull'emendamento 9.

  Bart Staes (Verts/ALE). - Voorzitter, ik denk dat er wat verwarring bestaat. Bij mijn weten is amendement 9 niet voorgelegd aan de plenaire vergadering. Ik zou graag hebben dat wij toch stemmen over amendement 9. U zei dat het een hoofdelijke stemming was. Bij mij staat dat opgeschreven als een gewone stemming bij handopsteking.

(l'emendamento 9 è votato per alzata di mano)

  Presidente. − Cari colleghi, la votazione è sospesa per permettere lo svolgimento della seduta solenne.

VORSITZ: MARTIN SCHULZ
Präsident

  Der Präsident. − Es ist mir eine große Ehre, den Präsidenten der Republik Irland, Herrn Higgins, bei uns begrüßen zu dürfen. Herzlich willkommen, Herr Staatspräsident, im Europäischen Parlament!

(Beifall)

Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen, Herr Higgins wird heute zu uns sprechen. Bevor ich ihm das Wort gebe, ist es mir eine außerordentliche Freude, den Erbgroßherzog des Großherzogtums Luxemburg, Erbgroßherzog Guillaume und seine Frau Stéphanie, bei uns auf der Ehrentribüne willkommen heißen zu dürfen. Herzlich willkommen!

(Beifall)

Ich freue mich ebenso, dass neben ihnen auf der Tribüne die Gattin des Herrn Staatspräsidenten Higgins, Miss Higgins, Platz genommen hat. Miss Higgins, herzlich willkommen im Europäischen Parlament!

(Beifall)

  Michael D. Higgins, Uachtarán na hÉireann. − A Uachtaráin, a Chomhaltaí de Pharlaimint na hEorpa, a Choimisinéir Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, tá athas orm agus is mian liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil libh as ucht an deis a thabhairt dom labhairt leis an tionól seo ina dtugtar le chéile ionadaithe na saoránach, arna dtoghadh go díreach agus go daonlathach, ó na seacht mBallstát fichead, ocht gcinn fichead go luath, den Aontas Eorpach.

Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, Commissioner Geoghegan Quinn, may I thank you for giving me the opportunity of addressing this assembly which brings together the democratically elected representatives of the citizens of the 27 Member States, soon to be 28, of the European Union.

I address you ‘mar Uachtarán na hÉireann’, as President of Ireland, an island that has always been connected to matters European; a country that has always looked outward; a people with a very strong connection with the cultures and learning of Europe in all its diversity from ancient times; and a nation that has valued the European vocation through every century into the present when Ireland holds, for the seventh time, the rotating Presidency of the Council of Ministers in our 40th year of membership of the Union.

Be it in our ancient Celtic connections, in our continuous connection with European scholarship, or in our modern consistent support for European unity, we Irish have been European in our consciousness and commitment. Europe has always had an existence in the Irish mind.

In our own Gaelic language the mythic stories of Europe have always been present and some of our modern plays recall the use that was made of the classical sources of Greek and Roman myths in the Gaelic hedge schools that preceded the widespread use of the English language in Ireland. The Irish language that preceded English had been deeply influenced by ancient European myths, particularly the great myths of sea and exile such as that of Homer’s Odyssey. In the areas of literature, of course the peoples of Europe have had an old and enduring sense of respect for what is a cultural diversity frequently drawn from a shared sense of myth.

It was, however, in the tasks of the mind and the spirit that the Irish sought to make their greatest contribution. Thus it was that in July 1950 the then Irish Prime Minister, John A. Costello, together with the Irish Foreign Minister, and later, Nobel Peace Laureate, and founding member of Amnesty International, Seán McBride, travelled to Luxeuil-les-Bains to officially celebrate the 1400th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest Irish and European saints and scholars, Columbanus. It was Columbanus who with Saint Gall and others established centres of learning, manuscript illumination, monasteries and communities right across Europe: stretching from the North of Ireland to Bobbio, where Columbanus actually died.

It is to the spirit of citizenship then, as it might be at a European level, as might motivate Europeans who want to give to the two words – European and Union – a sense of fulfilment, and of human flourishing that I wish to speak, in this year that has been dedicated as European Year of Citizens.

But just one more word about that meeting in Luxeuil-les-Bains in July 1950. No more than some meetings of the contemporary period, of which I will not speak, its real agenda was not as publicly indicated. It was declared to be ecclesiastical in purpose; after all, the Papal Nuncio to France of the time, Monsignor Roncalli, later to be Pope John XXIII, was present, as was the Bishop of Bobbio. But we know from the work of the distinguished scholar of the Sorbonne, Marguerite-Marie Dubois, modernist, linguist, philosopher and lexicographer, that the meeting was really organised so as to facilitate a meeting of Robert Schuman, Foreign Minister of France, with like-minded others from a number of European countries anxious to hear and test his great idea for the coming-together of the countries of Europe.

Schuman, who was aware of Ireland’s monastic efforts, reached back to recall the early monastic perigrinatio and offered the opinion that Columbanus should be ‘the patron saint of all those who now seek to build a united Europe’.

That Schuman meeting, and the others which followed it, assisted by such as Jean Monnet, was responding to near and terrible events. But we should never forget, and I emphasise it today, that in their response, at that meeting, they recognised the immense value of, and they drew on, the rich scholarship of philosophy, moral instincts and the general impulses of European thought as they sought, not just to replace war with peace, but more importantly, to construct a vision of Europe’s people working together in an inclusive way.

It was not just any abstract construction. It was a practical proposal drawn from the head and memory and experience, propelled by the heart, and it united economy and ethics in its aspiration for a common shared Europe.

Yet the inspiration and the achievements of the founders of the European Union we inherit as legacy cannot be taken for granted. Today, citizens in Europe are threatened with an unconscious drift to disharmony, a loss of social cohesion, a recurrence of racism and an increasing deficit of democratic accountability in some decision-making of an economic and fiscal kind.

These threatening clouds hang over a Europe that in more hopeful times had chosen to base its anthem, rather than on anything contemporary, on Friedrich Schiller’s poem ‘Ode to Joy’ and its musical setting by Ludwig Van Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony.

Parliaments matter; parliaments must continue to matter. Centuries of effort have been invested by European citizens in securing the vote, for example. In extending the vote, and it is to parliament that citizens look for accountability, for strategic alternatives. If national parliaments, if the European Parliament, were to lose the capacity to deliver accountability where else might it be found? Is there an alternative that can meet the requirements of a deliberative democracy? I believe not. But I believe that parliaments must draw on the resources of experience, of inherited intellectual capacity, in all its diversity and above all, from the best of contemporary intellectual work, and they must do so in a pluralist way.

I am conscious, in this year of the European Citizen, that as parliamentarians you are the elected component of the European Union, elected by citizens from your diverse electorates within the same few days. I want to wish you well in all your deliberations together and with the other institutions of the Union and particularly in your dialogue with your electorate – the citizens of Europe. They, the citizens, place their trust in parliament when they vote and they rightly have expectations of parliaments responding to their needs. I very much welcome the increase in influence and decision-making powers that the European Parliament has won in relation, for example, to the multi-annual budgeting process. It was a power that the Parliament did not have when I visited here as Minister – as President of the Council of Cultural Ministers – in 1996. I wish you well in discharging that responsibility on behalf of the citizens of Europe.

How would the founders of the European Union respond to our present circumstances one might ask? We know how hard the institutions, including this one, have worked to overcome the most serious economic crisis the Union has faced since its foundation; how they have struggled to match the speed of their reaction to the ferocity of its onslaught and the onslaught that comes at times from sources that are not accountable at all.

We cannot ignore the fact that European citizens are suffering the consequences of actions and opinions of bodies such as rating agencies, which, unlike Parliaments, are simply unaccountable. Many of our citizens in Europe regard the response to the crisis in their lives as disparate, sometimes delayed, not equal to the urgency of the task of showing and often of not showing sufficient solidarity with them in their threatened or actual economic circumstances of today.

They feel that in general terms the economic narrative of recent years has been driven by dry technical concerns; for example, by calculations that are abstract and not drawn from real problems, such an unemployment; geared primarily by a consideration of the impact of such measures on speculative markets, rather than driven by sufficient compassion and empathy with the predicament of European citizens who are, after all, together, members of a union, and for whom all of the resources of Europe’s capacity – political, social, economic and intellectual – might have been drawn upon, if it had been driven by the binding moral spirit of a union.

In facing up to the challenges Europe currently faces, particularly in relation to unemployment, we cannot afford to place our singular sole trust in a single hegemonic model to the exclusion of other models that might engage best our problems such as unemployment by uncritically accepting solely and exclusively a version of a logistical, economic theory whose assumptions are narrow and intellectually questionable and largely indifferent to social consequences in terms of their outcomes.

Rather than any discourse that might define the European Union as simply an economic space of contestation between the strong and the weak, our citizens yearn for the language of solidarity, a commitment to cohesion, for a generous inclusive rhetoric that is appropriate to an evolving political union, a union anxious to reach a future of peace, prosperity, inclusion and inter-generational justice, in a sustainable way.

This is a serious challenge, not least because if we were to fail we run the risk of an economic crisis leading to a crisis of legitimacy for the Union. A Union that, after all, in its founding treaties is fundamentally founded on values; values such as respect for personal dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.

The Union draws its legitimacy from the support of its citizens. That connection with the citizens – their belief that the European Union is of them and for them – is fundamental. Without it, we are adrift and citizens need an appeal to their heart thus, an appeal to their heart as well as their reason. They need reassurances now that this Union will keep faith with its founding treaties.

It is very many years since Jacques Delors declared ‘Europe needs a soul’, but it remains just as true. We must not forget that that we are the inheritors of a profoundly important set of European values – Greek democracy, Roman law, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the great democratic revolution that began in France. Europe is therefore more than an economic space of contestation in which our citizens are invited or required to deliver up their lives in the service of an abstract model of economy and society whose core assumptions they are assumed not to question or put to the democratic test in elections.

As we face into the future, we need to draw strength from those founding values of the Union, values that include cohesion and solidarity – among Member States, among the citizens of our Union, and between the European Union and the rest of the world. We need to work together to apply ourselves to building a better future together – as Jacques Delors also said of this present crisis: Europe does not just need fire-fighters, it needs architects too.

A first and urgent task must be to get Europe back to sustainable and fulfilling employment and a return to real growth. There is nothing more corrosive to society and more crushing to the person than endemic unemployment, particularly among the young. With 26 million people across the Union without work, 5.7 million young people, and 115 million people in our Union at risk of poverty and social exclusion; we simply cannot allow this to continue.

Irish Presidencies have always drawn practically from the spirit of the founding treaties and the current Irish Presidency has, therefore, put job creation at the top of its agenda. The European Council has agreed that addressing unemployment is the most important social challenge we face. At last month’s Social Summit, Mr President, rightly you warned of the repercussions of the spread of unemployment and poverty across the Union.

Therefore I commend the agreement reached in the European Council in February on the Youth Employment Initiative, and the subsequent proposals from the Commission to make it operational by the start of next year. The matter is urgent and I also very much welcome the agreement reached in the Council on the Youth Guarantee that will ensure all young people under the age of 25 a good quality offer of employment, education, apprenticeship or training within four months of being unemployed.

But we need to do more. We need to ensure that women participate in the workplace as equals; that older workers are not left on the sidelines; and that the long-term unemployed are fully equipped to find their way back into today’s work place. We must, above all, ensure that, for all these European citizens that a loss of employment does not lead to exclusion from participation, particularly in the cultural space of one’s own community.

We need also to consider how to encourage people to create jobs. We need to value and support our small and medium enterprises, the lifeblood of so many of our communities. We need to sustain those who want to create opportunity for themselves and for others. We need to encourage creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship.

A generous vision then of Europe is, of course, not one that looks solely inwards. The European model has inspired many others on their journey to peace and democratic institutions. While its light may not have dazzled so brightly in recent years, Europe can yet be a beacon of hope and encouragement for many less fortunate people in the world. It can give a lead, for example, by speaking with a unified voice on climate change, recognising that those least contributing to our global problem are paying the highest price, even as I speak and we meet today. Europe already is of course the largest donor in the fight against hunger and in the efforts at scaling up nutrition, and that is something Europe can build on.

How the European Union engages with the rest of the world is a major test of its authority and its credibility. Will the Union allow its current economic difficulties to undermine its commitment on the great global challenges of our day – hunger, poverty, human rights, climate justice? I hope not. Will we reaffirm rather the generous idealism at the heart of the European vision by rededicating ourselves to tackling these problems in solidarity with other partners? I hope we do.

For indeed, measures that replace the Millennium Development Goals – how they respect diversity, recognise different paths to development, have human rights at their centre – will be a major test, not only for Europe, but for the global community.

I believe that a European Union that has the courage to face its past, including its darker periods of empire, with honesty, and its future with a commitment to values that are inclusive of all humanity, with a discourse that respects diversity, has a profound contribution to make – not only to its own citizens in Europe but to the global community. It can give a lead in creating a form of ethical globalisation that recognises intergenerational responsibilities.

Such an integrated discourse as might allow for this to happen, I say frankly, is missing just now.

(Applause)

The prevailing narrative seems to be trapped intellectually in a structure of thought which it appears unable to challenge, from which it seems unable, or at times even unwilling, to escape or exit.

In the absence of considering, however, other possible models or approaches, we are in danger now of drifting into and sustaining a kind of moral and intellectual impotence. Yet we have available to us, I repeat again, a rich legacy of intellectual, radical work upon which to draw from the past and in the contemporary world.

There is, in our shared intellectual heritage, so much upon which we could draw. Let us remember in the energetic pursuit of new thought that, for example, characterised the European Enlightenment – itself formed from the thought of other ancient Enlightenments – that there are some powerful examples of dissident and radical thought.

Let us never forget the singular example given by those dissident thinkers in their time, Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant and Herder. They in their times identified the flaw in the Enlightenment thinking that supported empire, with its insatiable drive, and they courageously challenged it through their books, pamphlets and public expressions.

The logistical strand of economics which today holds sway and stands as a single hegemonic model of economic theory, not only in Europe, is the flaw of our times. This strand of neoclassical economics is of course useful for limited and defined tasks. It is insufficient however as an approach for our problems and our future. We need new substantive pluralist political economic models and an emancipatory discourse to deliver them, and I suggest that this is possible.

Because the dominating model and its method defines not only discourse, but policy options, there is an urgent need now for new models of connection between economy, society and policy. They are essential for genuine, pluralist choices in policy, not to speak of democratic accountability and relevance to our contemporary problems, if we are to address the current challenges. As European parliamentarians, I encourage you to let these new models into the European discourse, give them space in the committee structure of your Parliament and the institutional structure of the Union.

But to achieve that discourse the role of public intellectuals is also an urgent one. They are called upon, I suggest, to state publicly and unequivocally that the problems of Europe are not simply technical, and certainly not solely amenable to solution by technocratic measures at the expense of democratic accountability.

(Applause)

The suggestion that citizens and their representatives are not fiscally or economically literate enough to carry the decision-making necessary for policies that impinge on their lives – be it unemployment, housing, health, education or the environment – has the most serious implications in legitimacy terms. It is an assumption that challenges democracy itself.

A disembodied version of the economic space if used as a substitute for peoples, societies or states, loses its connection with history, contemporary challenges, and it lacks the moral connection with the ethics and solidarity we now need. It would evade rather than face our present challenges.

A European Union – if it is to be respected as the great project it is and can be – must draw on the intellectual heritage and the intellectual imaginings, and the existing talents and the capacity of the peoples of Europe. It is a fully authentic Union if it is characterised by solidarity.

Mar fhocal scoir, to conclude:

If our European Union and its prospects are not of this authentic character just now, it must be made so by changes in consciousness and commitment, and through reasserting the idealism, the intellectual strength and the moral courage too that drove the founding fathers of the Union. European Member States are after all peoples, with history, with current needs, with possibilities that are to be shared.

If we were, as an alternative, simply to regard our people as dependent variables to the opinions of rating agencies, agencies unaccountable to any demos, and indeed found to be fallible on so many occasions, then instead of being citizens we would be reduced to the status of mere consumers; pawns in a speculative chess board of fiscal moves in a game derived from assumptions that are weak; assumptions that are weak in a scholarly sense, untestable in an empirical sense and very frequently undeclared.

(Applause)

To ask that our decisions then be normative rather than being narrowly, fiscally technocratic is, I suggest, more than an integration of our intellectual capacities. It is to defend and deepen democracy. I readily acknowledge, I want to be very clear: I believe very much in the utility in so many areas of logistical economics. However, I believe that if its methods are elevated to being a substitute for the integrated multi-disciplinary scholarship that we now need to address the varying contexts and contingencies of current challenges, such a sole reliance on a technocratic approach would be markedly insufficient.

If we are to deliver the European Union of peace and prosperity that the founders envisaged, and that I believe the citizens of Europe yearn for beyond the understandable fear of present circumstances, a strategy that draws on the research, scholarship and world views of all of the social sciences, and ethics and philosophy is required.

President, Members of Parliament, Commissioners, leaders of groups, from the flux of diverse histories, from our current problems, from our fears and our aspirations, I hope will emerge a response that constitutes a tapestry of many colours, of different strengths in its threads; and, in its design, evocative of what memory has made endure, and the human spirit has invested with hope. Whether it is made out of wondrous reason or woven with a prayer will not matter in the end. What matters is that it be work of us all, working together, in cooperation, cosmopolitan and open to the world, caring for it, in an inter-generationally responsible way, and embracing all our people as equal citizens.

So let us the citizens of the European Union who want to make a real Union together, move out of the dark into the light and achieve something indeed worthy of Friedrich Schiller’s poem originally called ‘Ode to Freedom’. Go to it!

Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.

(Sheas a raibh sa Teach agus thug bualadh bos don chainteoir)

  Der Präsident. − Vielen Dank, Herr Präsident Higgins, für Ihre wunderbare Rede. Thank you very much, President, for your wonderful speech!

Ich weiß nicht, Herr Präsident, ob jedes Mitglied unseres Hauses bis in die letzte Vereinzelung Ihres Vortrags mit Ihnen einer Meinung ist. Das wage ich zu bezweifeln. Ich kann für mich persönlich erklären: Ich habe mit Enthusiasmus zugehört. Ich hatte den Eindruck, nicht alle Kollegen haben das gleichermaßen getan. Aber eines kann ich Ihnen sagen: Was ist Irland für ein glückliches Land mit einem so wunderbaren Staatsoberhaupt! Eine wunderbare Rede! Herzlichen Dank! Sie haben uns viel Mut gemacht.

(Beifall)

PRESIDENZA DELL'ON. GIANNI PITTELLA
Vicepresidente

  Presidente. − L'ordine del giorno reca il seguito del turno di votazioni.

(Per i risultati delle votazioni e altri dettagli che le riguardano: vedasi processo verbale)

- Prima della votazione sull'emendamento 3:

  Ingeborg Gräßle (PPE). - Herr Präsident! Ein mündlicher Änderungsantrag zum Änderungsantrag 3: Wir streichen das Wort „britisches“.

(L'emendamento orale è stato accolto)

- Dopo la votazione sull'insieme del testo:

  Gerard Batten (EFD). - Mr President, I have raised this point a number of times previously in this Parliament.

I realise we have an enormous amount to vote on, but you are conducting the vote ‘for, against, abstain’, ‘for, against, abstain’ at such a pace, it is impossible to get your hand up in the right place.

Now listen. Either we vote seriously or we abandon the pretence that we are actually voting at all.

  Presidente. − Allora, voglio tranquillizzare il collega che ha sollevato il problema.

Accelero un poco quando la votazione non è controversa, ma quando ci sono problemi e criticità io rallento.

- Prima della votazione:

  Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, rapporteur. − Mr President, I am just taking a little more time for all the work that we put into this. The next vote might be one of those confusing votes where you could easily vote in the opposite way to the way you would like to. I would like to emphasise that, if you want to grant discharge to the Environment Agency – and I urge you to do so – then you have to vote against at the next vote. So, once again, to vote in favour of discharge, vote against in the next vote.

- Prima della votazione sull'emendamento 4.

  Marisa Matias, relatora. − Sim, quero propor uma alteração oral à alteração n.º 4, apresentada pelo PPE, no sentido de eliminar toda a segunda parte do parágrafo apresentado, ficando o texto como passo a ler em inglês: Commends the proactive stance of the ECB during 2011 and 2012, in a context in which risks to eurozone stability increased considerably.

‘commends the pro-active stance of the ECB during 2011 and 2012 in a context in which risks to euro zone stability increased considerably’.

(L'emendamento orale è stato accolto)

- Prima della votazione sull'emendamento 11.

  Liem Hoang Ngoc (S&D). - Monsieur le Président, chers collègues, le groupe S&D a déposé un amendement oral sur l'amendement 11 avec pour objectif d'atteindre un compromis sur le paragraphe 31. L'amendement oral retire la dernière phrase de l'amendement 11. Le paragraphe 31, ainsi modifié, se présenterait de la façon suivante:

"juge la crise actuelle préoccupante parce qu'elle risque de compromettre les efforts substantiels consentis par les États membres pour mener à bien leur assainissement budgétaire et leur stratégie de réaction à la crise; note que la grave crise économique qui sévit actuellement dans plusieurs États membres de la zone euro a des conséquences économiques et budgétaires négatives, telles que des effets sur les recettes fiscales et les dépenses sociales dans ces pays et une exacerbation de leurs problèmes de dette publique;"

J'espère que vous serez en mesure de soutenir cet amendement oral qui pourra ainsi nous permettre de constituer une large majorité en faveur de ce rapport.

(L'emendamento orale è stato accolto)

- Prima della votazione sull'insieme del testo.

  Marisa Matias, relatora. − Eu quero apenas dizer que me mantive fiel ao compromisso que aprovámos na Comissão dos Assuntos Económicos e Monetários, porém, o relatório tal como se resolveu hoje aqui com a aprovação das alterações apresentadas pelo PPE desvirtua esse compromisso, elimina qualquer referência ao papel do BCE enquanto membro da Troika, elimina qualquer referência as países que estão sob resgate e, portanto, eu vou votar contra o meu relatório e espero que seja retirado o meu nome.

  Presidente. − Ne prendo atto onorevole Matias.

  Presidente. − Prego i colleghi di defluire per consentire a chi vuole fare le dichiarazioni di voto di farle.

Procediamo alle dichiarazioni di voto.

Voglio precisare che interromperemo le dichiarazioni di voto alle 14.55 per consentire ai servizi della plenaria e agli interpreti di prepararsi per la ripresa della seduta alle 15.00.

Le eventuali dichiarazioni non fatte oggi saranno fatte domani dopo la votazione delle 11.30.

Ovviamente speriamo di concludere anche prima delle 14.45.

  Jean-Pierre Audy (PPE). - Monsieur le Président, je voudrais faire une observation concernant l'article 213 du règlement.

Nous avons assisté au remarquable discours d'un chef d'État, du président de la République d'Irlande, et cet article prévoit que l'hymne soit joué lorsque nous avons des séances solennelles et, notamment, lorsque nous accueillons des chefs d'État.

Voilà plusieurs fois que nous recevons des chefs d'État avec des discours remarquables et l'hymne n'est pas joué. Y a-t-il un changement dans l'application du règlement au sujet du respect des symboles de l'Union?

  Presidente. − Trasferirò questa sua richiesta ai servizi.

Dichiarazioni di voto orali

  Iva Zanicchi (PPE). - Signor Presidente, di fronte alle misure di austerità adottate da molti Stati membri in risposta alla crisi del debito, le istituzioni europee hanno il dovere morale di dar prova di un elevato grado di responsabilità, da un lato cercando di trovare un delicato equilibrio tra il rigore di bilancio e di risparmi strutturali e, dall'altro, compiendo uno sforzo comune per aumentare l'efficienza senza pregiudicare l'eccellenza legislativa.

Per queste ragioni e per rispetto dei cittadini europei che stanno subendo gli effetti della crisi, credo occorra valutare con prudenza e in modo trasparente gli investimenti a lungo termine e insistere sulla necessità di una gestione dei costi, di una programmazione e di una supervisione dei progetti che siano efficienti e rigorosi.

  Hannu Takkula (ALDE). - Arvoisa puhemies, minusta on erittäin tärkeätä nyt, että me Euroopan parlamentissa kiinnitämme huomiota budjettikuriin. Meidän täytyy huolehtia siitä, että me emme näytä sentyyppistä esimerkkiä tällä hetkellä talousongelmissa oleville Euroopan kansallisvaltioille, EU:n jäsenvaltioille, että me emme täällä ymmärtäisi tilanteen vakavuutta, vaan meidän täytyy nyt todellakin hyvin huolellisesti miettiä sitä, millä tavalla yhteisiä varoja käytämme, ja että voisimme käyttää niitä niin, että siinä olisi vastuullisuuden lisäksi myös kasvun elementti vahvasti näkyvissä.

Me tarvitsemme kestävää kasvua Euroopan unionissa, ja sitä varten meidän täytyy myös omissa budjettilinjauksissamme olla hyvin tarkkoja ja katsoa sellaisia investointeja, jotka ovat pitkän aikavälin investointeja ja tulevat myös sitä kautta palautumaan takaisin entistä vahvempana kasvuna ja hyvinvointina koko Euroopalle.

  Monica Luisa Macovei (PPE). - Mr President, I voted for creating an interinstitutional data base for studies in order to avoid duplication of work, spending more money on the same studies and issues and also to allow the inter-exchange of the findings of these studies. I hope this will be properly enforced.

I would also like to welcome the adoption in June 2011 of the Commission’s new anti-fraud strategy and its internal action plan for implementation. Now each directorate-general at the Commission will have to implement it. Consistency between the directorates-general is very important, in order to have consistent implementation and be able to compare the results of these measures. Therefore I support paragraph 84 and call on the Commission to report on and to evaluate the anti-fraud strategies established with each and within each directorate-general.

Dichiarazioni di voto scritte

  Luís Paulo Alves (S&D), por escrito. − Aprovo o presente relatório, registando que a redução de 51 milhões de euros aplicada em 2011 às dotações para a cooperação no setor dos transportes no âmbito da Empresa Comum Clean Sky ficou a dever-se a uma revisão da abordagem da política industrial e que a redução de 60 milhões de euros nas dotações para pagamentos para projetos de interesse comum da rede transeuropeia de transportes foi efetuada por razões de calendário e para permitir a plena utilização dos montantes transitados de 2010. Saliento a importância dos investimentos na investigação e no desenvolvimento dos programas EGNOS e Galileo, que têm implicações para todas as políticas da União e congratulo-me com as taxas de utilização de 100% das dotações para autorizações e de 98% das dotações para pagamentos destinadas a projetos das RTE-T, o que comprova a fiabilidade dos projetos e a sua forte capacidade de serem concluídos nos prazos previstos se dispuserem de um orçamento suficiente. No entanto, manifesto a minha deceção pelo facto de, após a escassa utilização das dotações para pagamentos para a segurança dos transportes em 2010 e o pedido de explicações sobre a mesma à Comissão, não terem sido prestadas informações pormenorizadas sobre o nível das dotações e a sua utilização em 2011.

  Sophie Auconie (PPE), par écrit. – En vertu de son statut d'autorité de décharge, le Parlement européen est tenu d'approuver les dépenses du budget annuel de l'Union. C'est le Parlement européen qui donne ainsi décharge à la Commission européenne de l'exécution du budget au vu des rapports de la Cour des comptes et des recommandations des ministres des finances réunis en Conseil de l'Union européenne. A la fin de chaque exercice budgétaire, les députés européens décident ainsi d'octroyer, d'ajourner, ou de refuser cette décharge, qui est indispensable à la clôture officielle des comptes institutionnels. J'ai voté en faveur de ce rapport concernant la décharge sur l'exécution du budget général de l'Union européenne pour l'exercice 2011 à la Commission et aux agences exécutives. Il déplore le passage du taux d'erreur de 3,7% en 2010 à 3,9% en 2011 et une gestion partagée pas toujours suffisamment efficiente et fait des recommandations prioritaires afin d'améliorer cette situation.

  Zigmantas Balčytis (S&D), raštu. − Pritariau biudžeto įvykdymo patvirtinimui. Komisija yra atsakinga už ES biudžeto vykdymą ir vadovavimą programoms, todėl labai svarbu, kad šiuo sunkiu ekonomikos ir finansų krizės metu Komisija rodytų pavyzdį, užtikrindama gerą viešąjį valdymą. Geras viešasis valdymas yra būtinas veiksnys norint išsaugoti piliečių pasitikėjimą Europos Sąjunga. Audito Rūmai jau aštuonioliktą kartą iš eilės negalėjo pateikti teigiamo patikinimo pareiškimo dėl mokėjimų teisėtumo ir tvarkingumo. 2013 m. rugsėjo mėn. Komisija turėtų patvirtinti komunikatą Parlamentui, Tarybai ir Audito Rūmams. Svarbu, kad Komisija laiku atskleistų apie bet kokį mokėjimų sustabdymą, laikiną nutraukimą, kuriais siekiama užkirsti kelią klaidoms, ir atskleisti visas sumas, kurios, ištaisant finansines klaidas ir taikant lėšų susigrąžinimo procedūras ankstesniais metais buvo susigrąžintos iš kiekvienos valstybės narės, tarptautinės organizacijos ar trečiosios šalies. Komisija turėtų visomis priemonėmis stengtis įrodyti, kad ištaisius finansines klaidas buvo tinkamai kompensuota dėl padarytų klaidų atsiradusi žala ir kad tai padėjo atlikti ilgalaikius valdymo ir kontrolės sistemų patobulinimus.

  Elena Băsescu (PPE), în scris. − Am votat în favoarea raportului, deoarece gestiunea realizată de Comisie ar trebui prezentată cu justeţe, pentru a consolida încrederea publicului în instituţii. Comisia execută bugetul şi gestionează programe în cooperare cu statele membre pe propria răspundere, în conformitate cu principiul bunei gestiuni financiare. Ea ar trebui să includă datele pertinente privind toate politicile gestionate de aceasta. De asemenea, trebuie să îşi asume o mai mare responsabilitate pentru autorităţile de audit naţionale şi pentru sistemele de audit din statele membre în care au fost depistate cele mai multe erori. Este necesară armonizarea practicilor serviciilor sale în ceea ce priveşte întreruperea/suspendarea plăţilor, atunci când sunt depistate deficienţe majore în sistemele de supraveghere şi control ale statelor membre.

  Bastiaan Belder (EFD), schriftelijk. − Het verlenen van kwijting aan de Europese Commissie kan niet op mijn steun rekenen. De lidstaten moeten meer verantwoordelijkheid tonen bij het besteden van Europees geld. Jaar na jaar constateert de Europese Rekenkamer dat een fors deel van de fouten gesignaleerd en gecorrigeerd had kunnen worden in de lidstaten. Dat dit niet gebeurt, bewijst de noodzaak van goede lidstaatverklaringen. Als een minister zich politiek verantwoordelijk verklaart voor de juistheid van de besteding van EU-geld in zijn lidstaat, zal het foutenpercentage ongetwijfeld afnemen. De Europese Commissie, eindverantwoordelijk voor goed beheer, oefent echter onvoldoende druk uit op de lidstaten om deze lidstaatverklaringen af te geven. De lidstaten, op vier lidstaten na, geven het op hun beurt onvoldoende prioriteit. En dat terwijl iedere euro een doelmatige aanwending verdient. Dit zou in crisistijd toch voor iedereen duidelijk moeten zijn?

Daarnaast kan ik niet instemmen met het verlenen van kwijting aan het Europees Parlement. De kredieten voor 2011 waren 5% gestegen ten opzichte van 2010. Dat vind ik geen verantwoord financieel beleid. Een dergelijke budgetverhoging, met name in een tijd waarin burgers en bedrijven in de lidstaten zich moeite getroosten om te bezuinigen, doet de vraag rijzen of het Europees Parlement in dezen werkelijk de burgers vertegenwoordigt.

  Nora Berra (PPE), par écrit. – Depuis le Traité de Lisbonne, le Parlement européen a vu ses pouvoirs budgétaires renforcés. En termes de procédure, la décharge représente le contrôle final du Parlement sur la bonne exécution du budget. Ce droit de regard permet au Parlement de s'assurer de la bonne gestion de l'argent public. Dans le cas présent, la Cour des comptes européenne publie un rapport annuel examinant les finances de l'UE. Sur base de ce rapport, le Parlement européen rend sa décision d'accorder ou non la décharge d'une année donnée. Le rapport Geier, que j'ai approuvé, porte sur la décharge de la Commission pour l'année 2011.

  Mara Bizzotto (EFD), per iscritto. − Condivido l'analisi fatta dalla relazione del collega Geier, che presenta un buon apparato critico, ma non ho ritenuto di votare a favore del discarico per la Commissione e le sue Agenzie esecutive.

  Philippe Boulland (PPE), par écrit. – J'ai voté la décharge du budget de la Commission. La Commission applique le budget de l'UE et il revient au Parlement de lui donner décharge pour l'exercice écoulé. Le Parlement peut accompagner la décharge de recommandations, ce que nous avons fait en recommandant d'améliorer l'obligation de rendre des comptes de la gestion des fonds de l'Union par les autorités et agences nationales. Nous avons tout de même souligné que le taux d'erreur était passé de 3,7% en 2010 à 3,9% en 2011, il ne faudrait pas que cette tendance continue. De plus, de nombreuses erreurs ont été relevées dans la gestion partagée du budget européen entre les Etats membres et la Commission, un effort par la Commission a donc été demandé (meilleur compte rendu des résultats).

  Maria Da Graça Carvalho (PPE), por escrito. − Relativamente à quitação da execução do orçamento geral da União Europeia para o exercício de 2011, Secção III, Comissão e agências de execução, dei o meu voto favorável à aprovação do orçamento.

  Lara Comi (PPE), per iscritto. − Ho votato a favore di questa relazione attraverso la quale si concede il discarico per l'esecuzione del bilancio generale dell'Unione europea per l'esercizio 2011 per la Commissione Europea e tutta una serie di agenzie esecutive. La Commissione è l'organo che autorizza l'esecuzione al bilancio e gestisce i programmi. Tramite questa relazione ho potuto costatare che il mio Paese, l'Italia, insieme a tanti altri Stati europei, deve ancora migliorarsi sulla gestione dei fondi europei legati alla politica di coesione. Mi auguro che questo avvenga nella maniera più veloce ed efficace possibile perché i fondi europei rappresentano una preziosissima risorsa che dobbiamo essere in grado di utilizzare al meglio all'interno dei nostri territori, soprattutto di fronte alla grave crisi economica che ha colpito l'intero continente europeo e che, a fatica, stiamo cercando tutti di superare.

  Marielle de Sarnez (ALDE), par écrit. – Le Conseil s'est vu refuser le vote de sa décharge pour l'exécution de son budget en 2009. Selon le Traité, le Parlement européen est l'autorité de contrôle budgétaire et seul habilité à donner la décharge. Dès lors, le Conseil doit fournir au Parlement toute information que celui-ci jugerait utile. En refusant de répondre à nos questions, le Conseil refuse en fait d'informer les citoyens européens sur la manière dont il gère l'argent que lui ont confié les contribuables européens. Pour accorder la décharge, nous devons avoir accès aux comptes. Tant que le Conseil refusera de s'y soumettre, le Parlement européen ne pourra accorder la décharge. C’est le principe même du contrôle démocratique que doit exercer notre Parlement.

  Tamás Deutsch (PPE), írásban. − Az Európai Számvevőszék 2011-es pénzügyi évre vonatkozó éves jelentésének bemutatását követően a 2011. évi zárszámadási eljárás keretében az Európai Parlament Költségvetési Ellenőrző Bizottsága elvégezte az Európai Unió általános költségvetése III. szakaszának pénzügyi ellenőrzését. A szakbizottság elsődleges feladata a közösségi költségvetés végrehajtásának szabályosságát és hatékonyságát ellenőrizni. Az elfogadott zárszámadási jelentés megelégedéssel veszi tudomásul, hogy a 2011. december 31-én véget ért évről szóló beszámoló alapját képező bevételek minden lényeges szempontból jogszerűek és szabályszerűek voltak, továbbá megelégedéssel veszi tudomásul, hogy a beszámoló alapját képező kötelezettségvállalások minden lényeges szempontból jogszerűek és szabályszerűek voltak. A jelentés megállapítja, hogy a Bizottság felügyeleti és kontrollrendszerei továbbra is csak részben eredményesek, és emiatt a kifizetéseket 3,9%-os legvalószínűbb hibaarány jellemzi. A szakbizottság márciusi ülésén a mentesítés megadásáról, a 2011-es számlák lezárásáról döntött. A szakbizottsági szavazáson és a plenáris szavazáson is a mentesítés megadását támogattam.

  Jill Evans (Verts/ALE), in writing. − I voted in favour of this discharge because I am satisfied with the budget performance and monitoring. It is important to my constituents in Wales that public money is spent effectively.

  Göran Färm, Anna Hedh, Olle Ludvigsson, Jens Nilsson, Marita Ulvskog och Åsa Westlund (S&D), skriftlig. − Årsrapporten från EU:s revisionsrätt visade en svag ökning av den totala felprocenten från 3,7 till 3,9 procent vid genomförandet av EU:s budget. Detta är bekymmersamt.

Det är Europeiska kommissionen som ytterst ansvarar för användningen av EU:s pengar. Ändå riktar sig revisionsrättens kritik inte främst mot kommissionen, utan mot medlemsstaterna. Även om kommissionen formellt ansvarar för genomförandet av EU:s budget, beror andelen fel inte på kommissionen, utan felen uppstår i huvudsak på de av EU:s politikområden som är föremål för ”delad förvaltning” mellan EU och medlemsländerna (dvs. områden med medfinansiering, framför allt strukturfonderna). De största utgiftsområdena i EU:s budget, regional- och jordbrukspolitiken, står för den största andelen i den totala ökningen av fel. Därför anser vi att kommissionen bör beviljas ansvarsfrihet, och att medlemsstaterna i stället i rådet diskuterar åtgärder för att komma till rätta med dessa fel.

Vi vill också påpeka att vi inte vill öka andelen ”äkta egna medel” i inkomstsystemet till EU:s budget.

  Diogo Feio (PPE), por escrito. − No atual momento político, quando muitos dos Estados da União Europeia, em especial o meu, atravessam dificuldades sem paralelo na história recente, mais do que centrar-me no relatório que aqui estou a votar sobre as contas da Secção III da Comissão, gostaria de deixar algumas considerações mais gerais. Desde logo, gostaria de apelar a que todas estas instituições, serviços e agências da UE adotassem um princípio de boa gestão e uma política de contenção e austeridade relativamente aos seus gastos. O Orçamento da UE, para além dos recursos próprios, vem, essencialmente, das contribuições dos Estados, razão pela qual se exige, na atual conjuntura, uma especial contenção de despesas e a adequação das regras internas a uma política ativa que combata o desperdício e que institua normas claríssimas de boa gestão e de eficácia na utilização de dinheiros públicos. Não é possível que a UE continue a exigir difíceis ajustamentos aos Estados, quando nas suas instituições, serviços e agências ainda há inúmeros casos de má gestão e de falta de transparência.

  José Manuel Fernandes (PPE), por escrito. − O relatório em apreço, elaborado por Jens Geier, versa sobre a quitação pela execução do orçamento geral da União Europeia (UE) para o exercício de 2011, Secção III – Comissão e agências de execução. Nos termos do n.º 1 do artigo 17.º do Tratado da União Europeia, a Comissão executa o orçamento e gere os programas em articulação com os Estados-Membros (EM) e seguindo os princípios de boa gestão financeira. As instituições europeias, perante as medidas de austeridade impostas a muitos Estados-Membros, devem procurar o equilíbrio financeiro aumentando a eficiência sem prejudicar a excelência legislativa. Temos, pois, de dar mais atenção à execução orçamental e utilizar os fundos comunitários para promover o crescimento. A UE tem de se destacar como exemplo no que respeita à boa gestão dos dinheiros públicos, condição sine qua non para a manutenção da notação de triplo A essencial à satisfação dos compromissos a favor do Mecanismo de Estabilização Financeira (MEF). Nestes termos, e tendo em conta o relatório da Comissão do Controlo Orçamental e os pareceres das Comissões envolvidas, voto favoravelmente o relatório presente.

  Monika Flašíková Beňová (S&D), písomne − Podľa článku 17 ods. 1 Zmluvy o Európskej únii Komisia plní rozpočet a riadi programy a koná tak podľa článku 317 Zmluvy o fungovaní Európskej únie v spolupráci s členskými štátmi na vlastnú zodpovednosť v súlade so zásadou riadneho finančného hospodárenia. Keďže Európa čelí nielen hospodárskej a finančnej kríze, ale aj kríze dôvery jej inštitúciám, musí Parlament v tejto situácii skontrolovať účtovnú závierku Komisie s mimoriadnou dôslednosťou. Dôležité je, že v súčasnej situácii obmedzovania zdrojov v dôsledku hospodárskej a finančnej krízy je absolútne nevyhnutná tzv. inteligentná solidarita, a teda využívanie finančných prostriedkov Únie na vykonávanie reforiem, dodržiavanie finančnej disciplíny a zabezpečenie politickej a ekonomickej stability.

  Bruno Gollnisch (NI), par écrit. – Pour la 18ème fois consécutive, la Cour des Comptes a été incapable de délivrer une déclaration d'assurance positive et exempte de réserves sur la manière dont les budgets consacrés aux politiques européennes sont gérés. La Commission s'abrite commodément derrière la responsabilité des Etats, supposés gérer avec elle les dépenses. Mais il suffit de lire le rapport, et certains autres de la cinquantaine que nous votons aujourd'hui, pour s'apercevoir que la Commission, ou les agences qui lui sont encore directement rattachées, n’est pas exempte de reproches elle-même : complexité des politiques, gabegie, gaspillages, mauvaise gestion, manque de contrôle, problèmes de gestion et de recrutement de personnels, et même, dans quelques cas, doutes sur la légalité et la régularité des opérations sous-jacentes… Quant à la performance, c’est-à-dire l’utilité réelle des dépenses et leur valeur ajoutée par rapport aux actions nationales, elle est parait-il très compliquée à évaluer. J’aurais tendance à penser qu’elle n’est pas évaluée de peur de devoir conclure à son inexistence. De la part d’une institution qui se pique de donner des leçons de gestion budgétaire aux Etats membres, ou prétend la leur dicter, cela fait beaucoup. Suffisamment en tout cas pour que je ne vote pas la décharge budgétaire.

  Constance Le Grip (PPE), par écrit. – La décharge est la dernière étape de la procédure budgétaire européenne. Après audit et validation finale des comptes, le Conseil émet une recommandation avant que le Parlement accepte de donner ou non la décharge du budget, qui vient libérer la Commission de son obligation de gestion. Le résultat de l'examen des comptes ayant été satisfaisant et avec la recommandation positive du Conseil, j'ai voté pour donner décharge du budget de fonctionnement de la Commission.

  David Martin (S&D), in writing. − I voted to grant discharge to the Commission. In passing I note that 80% of funding is administered at Member State level and that the European Court of Auditors found that, in the vast majority of errors found in regional policy transactions, sufficient information was available for Member States to detect these errors themselves and therefore highlights the fact that measures such as improving administrative capacity, streamlining procurement and eligibility rules and a focus on simplification and a risk-based approach should be implemented at Member State level.

  Véronique Mathieu Houillon (PPE), par écrit. – J'ai voté en faveur du rapport de décharge à la Commission européenne qui pointe les insuffisances en matière de contrôle des Etats membres. En effet, 80% du budget de l'Union est dépensé via les autorités nationales à travers la politique de cohésion ou la politique agricole commune. Celles-ci ne sont pas suffisamment efficaces pour détecter les erreurs dans l'attribution des contributions européennes.

  Jean-Luc Mélenchon (GUE/NGL), par écrit. – La Cour des comptes a repéré des taux d'erreur réguliers pour bon nombre de financements gérés par la Commission européenne. Je le signale aux commissaires qui dénoncent sans relâche la mauvaise gestion des budgets des États et qui prétendent à leur contrôle. Ce seul motif pourrait me suffire à refuser mon suffrage à ce texte. Mais ce texte avalise en plus la stratégie Europe 2020 et le MES. Deux graves contresens économiques. Je vote donc résolument contre.

  Nuno Melo (PPE), por escrito. − Todas as instituições europeias que dependem do orçamento da União Europeia têm que ser fiscalizadas, de forma rigorosa, pelo Tribunal de Contas e por todas as entidades com essa função. É necessário aferir se os fundos comunitários estão a ser bem utilizados, se essas instituições estão a cumprir com os objetivos delineados e se não existe desperdício de recursos. De um modo geral, salvo raras exceções, a avaliar pelas fiscalizações conhecidas, podemos afirmar que as instituições em causa estão a utilizar de forma correta os fundos disponibilizados e a cumprir com os objetivos propostos. É nesse sentido, o voto favorável relativamente ao relatório de quitação da Secção III, Comissão e agências de execução.

  Willy Meyer (GUE/NGL), por escrito. − He votado a favor del presente informe por suponer una información veraz sobre la gestión de la Comisión con numerosas críticas al papel que ha desempeñado en 2011. Elaborar información de calidad es una herramienta fundamental para un control efectivo de las instituciones europeas por parte del Parlamento Europeo. El apoyo a la elaboración de estos informes es fundamental para la mejora de la transparencia y el control de la administración pública europea. Pese a haber votado en contra de la aprobación de la gestión, considero que este informe es un avance al exponer de una manera crítica el rol de la Comisión en el empleo de sus fondos. Por todo lo que esto representa para una gestión responsable de los fondos públicos a nivel europeo he votado a favor de este informe.

  Alexander Mirsky (S&D), in writing. − In favour, because this is the report on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2011, Section III – Commission and executive agencies.

  Andreas Mölzer (NI), schriftlich. − Nach wie vor lässt die Haushaltsführung der Europäischen Kommission – aber auch die der Mitgliedstaaten – zu wünschen übrig. Nach wie vor herrscht weder Transparenz noch funktioniert die Kontrolle bzw. die Wiedereinziehung zu Unrecht ausgezahlter Gelder. Ganz zu schweigen davon, dass beim Wirrwarr an EU-Agenturen mit seinen Kompetenzüberschneidungen und Doppelgleisigkeiten keine Besserung in Sicht ist. Gerade angesichts der anhaltenden Eurokrise wäre es höchste Zeit für Einsparungen. Aus diesem Grunde findet der Bericht meine Zustimmung nicht.

  Claude Moraes (S&D), in writing. − Eighty per cent of EU money is administered by Member States, and I welcome this report’s focus on problems identified at national level. I voted in favour of discharging the Commission’s expenditure for 2011. The error rate is high at 3.9 %, but the Commission has committed to corrective measures to reduce this. ‘Error’ should not be confused with ‘fraud’, which is subject to strict legal and recovery measures. Error can mean something as simple as incorrectly filling in a form.

  Rolandas Paksas (EFD), raštu. − Pritariu šiai rezoliucijai. Manau, kad Komisijai suteikiant daugiau galių kontroliuoti nacionalinius biudžetus yra pažeidžiami demokratijos principai. Beatodairiška taupymo politika nelabai taupyti begalinčios visuomenės atžvilgiu ir tokia pat beatodairiškai švaistūniška biurokratinio aparato išlaikymo politika sukelia sunkumų daugybei gyventojų ir gali tapti ES byrėjimo priežastimi. Atsižvelgiant į tai, Komisija turėtų pakeisti savo politikos kryptį ir atsisakyti griežto taupymo. Ypatingas dėmesys turi būti skiriamas nedarbui, kuris šiandien yra pagrindinė ES problema. Jeigu nesugebėsime išspręsti šios problemos per labai trumpą laiką, teks pamiršti visus ilgalaikius projektus. Be to Komisija, turi baigti daryti spaudimą tam tikroms valstybėms dėl jų vandens sektorių privatizavimo, kadangi dėl tokių privatizavimų išlaidos tik išauga, o ne sumažėja. Manau, kad didesnis dėmesys ir kontrolė turėtų būti skiriama Europos kovos su sukčiavimu agentūros veiklai, visapusiškai ištiriant įtarimus dėl jos naudojamų tyrimų metodų.

  Maria do Céu Patrão Neves (PPE), por escrito. − Tendo por base a recomendação do Conselho e os relatórios do Tribunal de Contas Europeu, votei favoravelmente a aprovação das contas apresentadas pela Comissão Europeia dando assim quitação às contas de 2011, da secção III, Comissão e agências de execução. De facto, dando quitação a uma instituição ou agência, o Parlamento Europeu declara que a mesma respeitou a regulamentação europeia na execução orçamental e dá por terminado o respetivo orçamento.

  Paulo Rangel (PPE), por escrito. − Ao dar quitação a uma instituição ou agência, o Parlamento Europeu aprova a boa utilização do erário público na execução orçamental, alcançada no respeito pela regulamentação. Após recomendação do Conselho, os deputados ao Parlamento Europeu são chamados a exercer controlo sobre a gestão das dotações, decidindo sobre a quitação com base nos relatórios do Tribunal de Contas. No que concerne o orçamento geral da União Europeia para o exercício de 2011, Secção III, Comissão e agências de execução, e avaliados os relatórios do Tribunal de Contas e da Comissão Parlamentar do Controlo Orçamental, apoiei a quitação à execução do orçamento.