Indrek Tarand, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, before I outline Green thinking on a few main points in next year’s budget, I would like to thank Mr Mureşan for the great job he has done. No one would have believed that an adventurous and joyous student of Humboldt University, such as he was, would become such a statesman only 10 years later, able to manage all compromises on this issue, which were quite complicated.
The first of them – and I was extremely pleased to hear this from Commissioner Oettinger – is that the new initiative on the European Solidarity Corps will not be financed at the cost of the Erasmus programme, and that deserves applause from the Green Group in Parliament as well.
Secondly, I keep my eyes wide open on climate action, and we have still not managed to meet the requirements of the European Court of Auditors report, in that we still do not spend enough on climate-change deterrence action, and the situation is becoming more and more serious. The latest scenario I read is that this place – this very place, Strasbourg – could be turned into a swamp in just 30 years if the ocean level rises only 2.5 m. And this is where we need to help Finland, as President of the Arctic Council, to explain to other members, like the USA and Russia, what is actually happening up in the Arctic.
Finally, this is not a Green point but it is my pleasure personally, unlike Ms Ní Riada, to welcome the European defence initiative. This is a serious matter, and a second pillar of NATO needs to be created here.