Text tabled : A7-0040/2012

  Michał Tomasz Kamiński (ECR). – (PL) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as with all the Poles who are members of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, I voted in a different way from our group and endorsed this report. I do see the arguments of all those who are talking about the need for savings in the EU budget and the need to fight bureaucracy. They are good and commendable principles and they should be supported but, all the same, it should be remembered that those who will lose most over cuts in the EU budget are principally the new Member States, and it is these Member States which today need support from the European Union to make up the distance in terms of their economy and infrastructure which separates them from the wealthy countries of the old Europe. In Poland, we had already opened our market to goods from the European Union at the beginning of the 1990s – we did not protect our market. British, Italian and Dutch firms made huge sums from the opportunities afforded by the Polish market. Today, the moment has come in which our citizens are entitled to demand that Europe help them – Europe is helping, but we do not want it to stop.