Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 18 September 2019 - Strasbourg

Presentation by the Council of its position on the draft general budget - 2020 financial year (debate)

  Damian Boeselager (Verts/ALE). – Madam President, I support my Group’s initiative to honour the Barroso Commission’s promise of committing at least 20% of the budget to climate within the old multiannual financial framework (MFF). Let me remind you that this promise was given even before the Paris Agreement. As it stands, we are falling short of this promise by EUR 3.5 billion. I also strongly support the initiative for using the entire financial flexibility towards young Europeans in Erasmus and the Youth Unemployment Initiative.

But this discussion is also about something bigger. It’s about demonstrating Parliament’s ambition for the next budget. In the European elections EU citizens have shown us that they expect us to be more ambitious to provide European solutions to the challenges that affect their lives. We need a budget that increases, rather than decreases, the EU’s capacity to act when it comes to climate change, migration, asylum and youth unemployment. For that we need a budget that serves European people across all Member States. We should also increase the financial resources that the EU raises itself, which the Treaties demand we do.

We need to explain and convince European citizens and our friends in the Council that giving more money to the EU is worth it and that the additional investment is worth it. Let us be confident and ambitious, as the European people have demanded we be, within this budget and the next.