Insterinstitutional Conference with National Parliaments Future financing of the EU, in the EP in Brussels. Welcome address by Martin SCHULZ, EP President and the presentation by Mario MONTI, Chairman of the High Level Group on Own Resources

Brussels

speech

own resources (T)

SCHULZ, Martin (S&D, DE)

interparliamentary conference

MONTI, Mario (IT)

Insterinstitutional Conference with National Parliaments Future financing of the EU: extracts from the welcome address by Martin SCHULZ, EP President and the presentation by Mario MONTI, Chairman of the High Level Group on Own Resources

Interior, Atmosphere before the opening, (3 shots)

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, The aim of this conference is to discuss the reorganisation of one of the core components of the EU, the EU own resources.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, Every year we see the same budgetary blame game taking place and as we all know this holds up the budgetary procedure every year. Causing a delay of several weeks and that whole situation damages the images of the EU immensely. And the fact that the EU&rsquo;s budget covers so many values that cannot be expressed in monetary terms means that this is even more damaging.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, We in the EP had been critical with the situation for many years and in adopting the MFF (Multiannual financial framework) 2014-2020, we linked our approval to a promise from the MS to reform the own resource system.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, EU own resources have to be easier to understand, they have to be more transparent to the EU citizens, I don&rsquo;t know if any of you have every tried by yourself to find out how much you pay as an EU citizen to the EU budget trough own resources, or find out how much your home country pays in net terms to the EU budget, well I can tell you if you really try to find this out how much a country actually pay, what is the contribution of my region, I can tell you it is almost impossible to find this out.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, We need easier and more transparent system, secondly the new simplified own resources for the EU budget should be linked to key EU policy areas.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, There are areas where the EU creates added value for the citizens of the Union, so it would be clear to the citizens that there is a logical link between political projects and the financing that is made available.

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, It cannot be that we have more and more initiatives, which should be supported by the EU, but the EU budget stays unchanged. That is one of the most interesting phenomena of the last years.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mario MONTI, Chairman of the High Level Group on Own Resources, The round of political games that are played in particular every 7 years, the round decision for the Multiannual Financial framework, do not contribute to integration, they rather contribute to disintegration.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mario MONTI, I hope our discussions today and tomorrow help us design a clear and ambitious view for the EU&rsquo;s future, where common problems are addressed together while not increasing necessarily the pressure on public finances.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mario MONTI, We have examined such policy driven resources in several areas: financial stability and fight against tax avoidance, FFT, Financial activity tax, environment and fight against climate change, carbon tax, proceeds from the ETS, a share of National motor fuel taxes which defined as an own resource for the EU budget, as proposed a few month ago by the Finance Minister of Germany, the list is far from exhausted. Such list of new revenue would not change the fact that fiscal competence remains exclusively at National level, they would not constitute EU taxes as often wrongly claimed.