During the EP plenary session (24-27/10) in Strasbourg, MEPs debate on EU General budget 2017. Statements by Jens GEIER (S&amp;D, DE), Rapporteur, Indrek TARAND (Greens/EFA, EE), Rapporteur, Ivan LESAY , State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic, Kristalina GEORGIEVA, Vice-President of the EC in charge of the Budget and Human Resources, Siegfried MURESAN (EPP, RO), Jean-Paul DENANOT (S&amp;D, FR), and Bernd K&Ouml;LMEL (ECR, DE).&nbsp;

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

TARAND, Indrek (Greens/EFA, EE)

GEIER, Jens (S&D, DE)

MUREŞAN, Siegfried (EPP, RO)

DENANOT, Jean-Paul (S&D, FR)

EU budget 2017 (T)

KÖLMEL, Bernd (ECR, DE)

GEORGIEVA, Kristalina (BG)

LESAY, Ivan (SK)

EU General budget 2017: extracts from the debate

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/14673264/I128054Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (German), Jens GEIER (S&amp;D, DE), Rapporteur, What we want to do is to demonstrate what can be done if you mobilise the budget and use up what is available to the full. We got the guarantee of the Jucker plan and that has to be freed up within the mid-term revision, and we need to do everything we can to support these guarantees, and in so doing we fund research, cross-border transport infrastructures, we are funding SMEs and we decided we were providing young people the age of 18 with EURORAIL tickets as well.

SOUNDBITE (English), Indrek TARAND (Greens/EFA, EE), Rapporteur, The budget 2017 as proposed by the co-rapporteurs is stronger, greener and more democratic. Stronger because it restores several targeted cuts, the FCI, related cuts in relation with Horizon 2020, SMEs, Erasmus, Life PLUS, youth employment initiative and DCI, and more to tackle the migration crisis. Greener, because it includes some targeted and specific increases for sustainable programs such as Life PLUS.

SOUNDBITE (English), Indrek TARAND (Greens/EFA, EE), Rapporteur, It&rsquo;s more democratic because it includes a reserve of the budget of the Commission in order to force the Commission to come up with a stricter code of conduct. After both the Barrosogate and the Kroesgate, the EU citizens can&rsquo;t simply accept that ex-Commissioners are not bound by strict rules and are not accountable anymore.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan LESAY , State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic, The Council is very concerned about the significant increases of appropriations proposed by the Parliament. In some case going beyond the ceilings fixed in the MFF. If we look at the details, the Council notes that substantial reinforcement are proposed for Horizon 2020, and connecting Europe facility. These would bring us one year back, when negotiating the regulation establishing the European fund for strategic investments. And this is not consistent with the agreement we reached on this.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan LESAY, State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic, Overall the difference between our respective positions totals 6 billion euros in commitment appropriations and 4.2 billion in payment appropriations.

SOUNDBITE (English), Kristalina GEORGIEVA, Vice-President of the EC in charge of the Budget and Human Resources, Let me say just a word on payment appropriations. We provided you with the latest state of play, just last week, our best estimate is that the proposal from the Parliament to restore most of the appropriations at the level of our draft budget is actually aligned with this most recent clear estimate.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MURE&#536;AN (EPP, RO), We allocate more money for students, for researchers, for youth, for SMEs, through the programs Erasmus, COSME, the European Research Centre. We gladly see that the Commission proposes exactly this in its amending letter number one, to allocate more money to these very categories that I just mentioned.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Paul DENANOT (S&amp;D, FR), As a member of the Budget Committee, I would like to say that the budget should not be reserved to the initiated, because it is so central to European policies. To overlook the budget is to overlook community policies, it&rsquo;s to desert the public arena, and basically to abandon European citizens and the very notion of Europe.

SOUNDBITE (German), Bernd K&#214;LMEL (ECR, DE), We in the ECR group do not agree that budgetary appropriation should go up against the original proposal of the Council. In fact, currently the proposal is such that it should exceed the agreement made in 2014, we are talking about an excess amount of 500 000 000 euros, and unfortunately this was not approved in the Budget Committee.