Lambert van Nistelrooij (PPE). – Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner very much for the good presentation today and the ideas behind it. In fact, when you talk about added value, we can immediately go to the centre: it means to keep Europe together. It does not mean the parts of Europe that are the winners. The rest are followers and what do we do with the rest of the rest? Give it to the Chinese? Sell it? This is the key point when we talk about cohesion.

As you said, there are new priorities, but beyond that we can be more creative in the way we deliver our funds and our economic, social and territorial cohesion. Here we might come up with a framework with rules under which funds can work better directly for citizens and for the beneficiaries. Let me say one thing about the speed that we need: if you can come forward with your MFF at the beginning of next year, we will, as Parliament, finalise the work on the regulations before the elections. This is in fact what we have to do: added value in the work we deliver here and you in the Commission.