Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 14 December 2022 - Strasbourg

Upscaling the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (debate)

  Siegfried Mureşan (PPE). – Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, when we adopted the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, we adopted it together with Next Generation EU. Next Generation EU and the budget together allow for more spending, more investments than ever at the level of the European Union.

But these two together are bigger than previous budgets. But, because of Next Generation EU, we decided to cut the budget narrower than before, and there are areas in the budget where the funding is insufficient simply because the budget, the headings, the lines are smaller than before.

Of course, it would be wrong to always ask for bigger budgets, like it is also wrong to always ask for smaller budgets. The right thing to do for us now in the context of the revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework is to look concretely where we can improve things, where we can do better. And one proposal is the following: in the budget we have included the repayment of the interest rate for Next Generation EU.

We do not know exactly how much interest rate we will have to pay in each year, and including that inside the ceilings of the Multiannual Financial Framework means that we have an amount there which can grow and, if it grows, it becomes a risk for priorities of the budget and it also becomes a risk for our capacity to react in situations of crisis.

The more we spend for interest rates inside the budget, the more we have for our real priorities, for our real policies and for helping people in need in times of crisis. And this is why I would like to reiterate what already is an official position of the Parliament to have the repayment of Next Generation EU interest payments outside the ceilings of the budget.

Other than that, of course, we have to make sure that we allow for more flexibility in the context of this revision and that we really look at those lines in which we had unexpected crises, foreign policy, migration, borders, where the money that we provided is not enough,

Concrete solutions for concrete problems, this is what we demand.