Siegfried Mureşan, rapporteur. – Mr President, colleagues, Commissioner Oettinger, I am bringing to your attention tonight the draft report on the guidelines for the budget of the European Union for 2018. It is the report in which we, as a Parliament, are putting forward our political priorities for the budget of the Union for next year. I would like to propose two political priorities: number one, growth and jobs; and number two, security. I would like to propose these as priorities because these are exactly the areas in which the citizens of the Union expect that the Union will deliver: number one, growth and jobs; number two, security.

How will we achieve this? Number one: on growth and jobs, I propose that we invest more in infrastructure, innovation and research, that we support more SMEs, and that we invest more in entrepreneurs, especially highly innovative entrepreneurs. So programmes like the Connecting Europe Facility, Horizon 2020, COSME, Erasmus, the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) have to be enforced in the budget of the Union for next year, because it is only by strengthening the economy of the Union and making it more competitive and more credible in the eyes of investors that it will be able to grow and create jobs.

The second priority which I am proposing is security. This has two aspects, two components: internal security and external security. For internal security, as we all know, the financial means under heading 3 are very limited. So the question is: how can we have an impact with the limited financial resources which we have available? I propose that we strengthen the agencies of the Union which have responsibilities in the area of justice and home affairs: Frontex, EASO, Europol and Eurojust. We need to strengthen them, and we need to make them cooperate better and use synergy effects between them. Also, to improve internal security, I support the defence pilot projects launched by the European Commission this year. They have to continue because, until now, we have spent money in 28 Member States of the union 28 times for defence industries and defence research for the same results. This needs to end where it can. We need to achieve economies of scale. Spend money once at European level and share the results, as is normal to do amongst partner countries.

Security also has an external dimension, and I would like us to stand side-by-side with the eastern neighbourhood of the Union and with those countries which have embarked on a pro-European path the three countries that have signed Association Agreements with the European Union: Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova. They face a more aggressive Russian Federation. We need to stand by their side to strengthen their institutions, their judiciary – the independence of the judiciary – the rule of law, to fight money laundering and to fight corruption. We also need to stand by the countries in our southern neighbourhood, Northern Africa and the Middle East. These are countries of origin or countries of transit for refugees, and it is for us much cheaper, it is politically easier and it is safer for the Union to support refugees in their countries of origin. It is also preferable for them. We can achieve much better results by supporting them there and preventing them from coming in high numbers to Europe.

These are the main political priorities which I am putting forward for debate and for vote tomorrow. In addition to these, there are also small punctual projects which help different categories of people in Europe. We believe in the Erasmus programme. It has to be strengthened, but we believe that in addition to the Erasmus programme, the Interrail project – which was proposed over the course of the past month and which would enable every young citizen in Europe who turns 18 to receive from the budget of the Union a free 30-day Interrail pass – is something which would enable people to learn more about Europe, to practice the foreign languages which they have learned in school, and, in particular, to increase their chances of finding a good job.

As we know, employers appreciate international experience. On this basis we would like to ask the Commission to put forward a legislative proposal to enable the Interrail project in a transparent, predictable and sustainable way without, of course, affecting any other existing projects. I thank you for your attention. I am looking forward to the debate tonight.