Johan VAN OVERTVELDT (ECR, BE), Chair of the Committee on Budgets, Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL) and Margarida MARQUES (S&D, PT), MFF co-rapporteurs, José Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), and Valérie HAYER (Renew Europe, FR), Own Resources co-rapporteurs, and Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE) speak to the press on the outcome of the latest negotiating round on the MFF and new Own Resources, in the European Parliament in Brussels. The following transcription is the result of an automatic process. Check Against delivery.

Brussels

press conference

own resources (T)

EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights (T)

OLBRYCHT, Jan (EPP, PL)

FERNANDES, José Manuel (EPP, PT)

VAN OVERTVELDT, Johan (ECR, BE)

Multiannual financial framework 2021-2027 (T)

HAYER, Valérie (Renew, FR)

MARQUES, Margarida (S&D, PT)

Press conference on the outcome of the latest negotiating round on the MFF and new Own Resources

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE),Thank you very much for the introduction. Thank you all for being here. We are in at this point in time, indeed coming into a, should I say, a crucial phase of these trialogues on MFF and of course also on the resilience and recovery facility.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), This morning we had our sixth trialogue. There's another one planned for next Thursday. And so you'll see it's also for the parliament and certainly for the parliament's negotiating team. Also a question of urgency. We very well know that this, especially the recovery and resilience facility, is urgently needed.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), We all see around us what is happening. And so we are working around the clock to get to a good deal and especially a good deal for European citizens. Don't blame the Parliament that it is our fault that things keep on going too slow pace. We are ready to negotiate almost two years now since November 18th.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), And in the meantime, of course, the world has changed. We have adjusted and we have adapted. We have brought our demands to pop up more than 40 programmes, down to fifteen programmes. We initially demanded extra one hundred and fifty billion. We've brought that down to what is implied in the latest proposal of the Commission.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), The Own Resources Decision, which, as you all know, is very important for this whole construct of the new MFF and the RRF. We pushed it through in the Parliament literally in a few weeks time. So what we could do, the only thing we could do to move the process forward, forward as quickly as possible in terms of the national ratifications we've done, we've done it in the shortest possible time.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), And so don't let there be any misunderstanding that we are up to the task. We are ready to negotiate. We are ready to take steps. But it has to come from two sides as they also say, at least in my mother tongue, in in a marriage situation, we talk about basically four issues. We talk about the programmes, we talk about the resources, we talk about horizontal issues.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), But we also certainly talk about the budgetary authority. And that's why I would like to invite Mr Fernandes to enlighten you on where we stand on this issue at this point in time.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I think everyone knows that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and there's been progress now on the role of the budgetary authority. We asked for transparency. We asked for democracy, democratic legitimacy. It would be unacceptable that there is a recovery fund of three hundred and ninety billion in grants.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), We could not have this an external assigned revenue with no role for the Parliament. That would be completely unacceptable. Citizens have the right to know how their money is being used. So we have an interinstitutional agreement. We will be involved in the budget and new budgetary procedure.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), The next review of the financial regulation will also include provisions which will respect and include this role of the Parliament. We are also protecting the future. The architecture of the recovery fund is based on Article one to two of the treaty.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), We need to have a role. We, the Parliament, need to have a role. When there's an impact on the budget in the future, there will be a declaration to allow us to implement a joint committee to analyse the impact. And this will all be done under Article one to two of the Treaty.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), The Parliament will now have its role in the future budgetary activities, and it strengthens the Democratic legitimacy. The joint declaration will also set out the framework for how this will work and there will be a binding commitment in the international into interest agreement. In terms of the role of the budget authority, we are currently finalizing those points that we have made some significant progress in that area.Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), Firstly issue the budgetary authority. Second issue the programmes, the flagship programmes. And I like to pass the word on first Mr Jan Olbrycht, and then Margarita Marques, the two rapporteurs on this important issue.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), OK, all right. So first of all, I do apologise about the rule of quarantine obligatory for everybody. So as far as concerns the programmes, what our president just explained that we made a very long of starting with one point three percent of GNI, next going through more than 40 programmes which are necessary to be reinforced.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), In the resolution we reduce it to 15 programmes as as a priority. We decided during the negotiation not to open the box, to end the so-called traditional policies or basic policies like cohesion or agriculture. We concentrated on the future-oriented so-called flagship programmes. So that's why we in our resolution, we have 15 programmes and we ask the Council to find a way to finalise reinforcing of this 15 programmes.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), From our side, of course, that we said very clearly that the last proposal of the Commission was of course, reduced, comparing to the other proposals. But still even this proposal was cut in the final conclusions of European Council. It was started about twenty six to twenty six billion. So in our position in our negotiation, we said that we need a very clear political decision.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), Do you want to reinforce the future oriented policy like everything which is connected to research, some everything which is connected to to the exchange of young people, etc. The Erasmus question, what about the border control and the migration policy? What about the defence fund? And et cetera? So we just we are just asking the questions.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), What about your programmes? You as governments have decided to implement because it was your decision to implement the policies or the financing of the policies. So our demand is let's work together and let's find a way to reinforce financially these policies. And of course, the the answer from the presidency was from the very beginning, very clear that they said, please prioritise amongst these fifteen.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), And in effect, we refused and we said, sorry, we have to find a clear space of manoeuvre because the same amount of money will be important for one programme and will be very, very limited by another. So at this very moment, we are proposing just to finalise my my presentation is let's take the amount which has been proposed by the Commission.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), It means twenty six billion. And let's consider the possibility to put over the ceilings the financial interest which is linked to the new recovery fund, which is not clear yet. And we don't know what will be the dynamic of the fund. So these twelve point eight billion, which is planned in the budget, from my point of view, should be placed on top of what we said over the ceilings.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jan OLBRYCHT (EPP, PL), It makes it all together, thirty eight point five billion. And this is our negotiation position. We said, please, we have the proposal is let's think about finding the money train for the policies. If you want us to propose something, our proposal is thirty eight point five billion from the beginning of the negotiations. What is your proposal? How much money we can find together to reinforce the programmes if we want to reinforce them and not reduce them.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Margarida MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), Thank you. I think my colleague has already given us a lot of the information. But as one of the co-rapporteurs for the MFF, I wanted to add a quick point here. We, the European Parliament, have taken a step towards the Council. We had 40 programmes with specific amounts and now we've reduced that down to fifty. And this is in accordance with the suggestion from the European Commission.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Margarida MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), We want consistency. We want consistency with policy aims. We hope that the Council can take a step towards us. We want them to tell us what is their proposal, what would the step towards is that they're prepared to make. We've been waiting for this for a number of weeks already now. Now there are some suggestions.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Margarida MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), We have proposals where the Council could go and look for fresh money and where the Council could work to move towards us on certain points. We also suggested, for example, the reference amount on interest could be taken out of the ceilings and that would be about twelve point nine billion.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Margarida MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), There's also possibility with some other funds, for example, European Development Fund could be taken out to the ceiling as well. That would be able to look for funding to be able to increase the ceilings on those specific programmes. Now we're waiting for a response from this on the Council. We want to be able to continue to progress with negotiations and we want to be able to move on to the next stage.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Margarida MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), The next stage is to debate flexibility and the different abilities or modalities of how we review the MFF in the mid-term. We need to look at flexibility, flexibility so that we can explore all in all its parts, for example, both on the MFF and on the recovery from the next generation EU. We also want to agree about how we are going to proceed with the mid-term review.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Margarida MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), The framework budget or the budget framework rather for the 2020 and 2024 period. The first half of the MFF will be completely different to the second part of the budgetary period. That this would be the commitment period of post, the period from the recovery fund. That's important to understand how we're going to operate.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Margarida MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), We need also need to be able to assess the impact of own resources and we need to look at the different ways of how we can direct the future budget of the European Union. Now, this is the point that we're currently discussing in the Council. They also know the steps that we need to take following on from that. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (Original), VAN OVERTVELDT Johan (ECR, BE), Thank you. The third item on the agenda are still very much on the agenda of the trialogue. Is the only sources I invite the two rapporteurs again, Jos&eacute; Manuel Fernandes and Val&eacute;rie Hayer to take the floor.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), Thank you. Some progress has been made when it comes to new own resources. The developments are in the direction of what the Parliament was asking for. The principles, the process and the timetable will be part of the interinstitutional agreement. It will be contained therein and that's a key. And as you know, that agreement is binding.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), So the principle here is clear with this interinstitutional agreement, new own resources need to be sufficient to pay the debt, that is the instalments, to pay back the debt and the interest. Anything that goes above that flows back to the budget. And that is one way of protecting the European funds and programmes.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), It also protects the next budget and future generations. That way, we can guarantee that the citizens will not be bearing the brunt for this. So things are well underway. There are still a number of issues that need to be dealt with. And Valerie will take those points, I am sure. And let me just conclude with the following.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), 15 days ago, we gave our agreement to the Own Resources Decision. And it's a matter of urgency because with these own resources there will be the recovery plan. It's that decision that allows the Commission to go to the market. So what is Council waiting for, and why are they dragging their feet when everyone knows that the ratification by the national parliaments takes about a year and a half to two years?

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), What is Council waiting for? They are endangering the swift entry into force of this plan. And I would like to use this opportunity to say to Council, hurry up, take a decision, because this is the most complex and time consuming process and we need the recovery plan to be in place by the 1st of January 2021. And without the recovery plan, it is clear that we won't be able to have an MFF.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Jos&eacute; Manuel FERNANDES (EPP, PT), Because it would be the recovery plan otherwise that masks the cuts that have been made under the MFF and it would also mean that it's devoid of any ambition.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), Good afternoon. In addition to what Jos&eacute; Manuel has just said on own, resources, there are three points which are currently still being discussed during our negotiations. The first one was developed by Jos&eacute; Manuel, which is the fact that any revenue obtained through own resources needs to pay back the debt and the cost of the debt, first of all.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), Secondly, what is important is the process because there is a Commission proposal and then you have the new own resources that will be introduced at the end of that. But we would like there to be a binding process for the intervening time for all parties with clear dates. I think we made quite a bit of progress on that this morning.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), And then the third point in negotiations, and this is an area where we still need to make progress, is the clear timetable as to when these new own resources are phased in. Now, you know that the Parliament some time has been calling for a basket of new own resources. There is a timetable that we have in mind that we take into negotiations with the German presidency.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), There are six own resources that would be phased in. The plastics is part of the Own Resources Decision, which will soon be ratified. We hope so. The plastic contribution then the ETS is from 2021. So that's the first stage. The second stage is 2023. With the carbon adjustment mechanism at the borders and the digital tax, then 2024, the financial transaction tax and 2026, the CCTV.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), In negotiations with the German presidency, we're aiming for two of those new resources, which is ETS and a financial transaction transaction tax, we need to make more efforts to make sure that the Parliament's position is heard, as Jos&eacute; Manuel has said. Now, why is this of fundamental importance to Parliament, this business of new own resources?

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), Well, it's an old chestnut for us. It's something that we've been in favour of for a long time. And a further reason for it now is this recovery plan, which is money that will have to be reimbursed if we don't have sufficient own resources to reimburse the recovery plan. What's going to happen? There will be further cuts to programmes and member states will be asked to increase their national contribution, which means as a result, that Europe citizens will be taxed more.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), Now, if digital giants, polluting Chinese companies, speculators on the financial markets... If they're not paying their fair share of taxes, then it's those actors that will have to pay for the recovery plan and they will have to contribute to making sure that that debt can be serviced.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), Thank you. And welcome from my side. I would say that on the horizontal issues, climate, biodiversity and gender, first of all, European citizens are expecting a lot from all of the institutions. And of course, we all agree on the principles on how important these questions are for the development in the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), But we need to see the German presidency moving on on these kind of questions. A and for us in the European Parliament, it's also a question about do we act like we are preaching or do we just preach some nice speeches about these kind of questions without acting? We all agree on that we will have an ambitious climate law in some months.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), We all agree on the green deal and we all agree on the principle on how important gender equality is for the European Union. But we need to see some more action. And this means for us, when it comes for climate, for example, to integrate the so-called do no harm principle in the interinstitutional agreement we are negotiating. Climate harming projects should be kicked out of the European budget and we need the do not harm principle to ensure that this will happen.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), We are fighting for biodiversity spending target. You all know that on biodiversity we are not just talking about climate spending, but we have also a crisis related to the biodiversity. And some of the member states like France had fought for that. And the Parliament had brought up the 10 percent biodiversity spending target back in the negotiations after the Council were unwilling in agreeing on the biodiversity spending target.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), And this is really key for us to ensure that biodiversity... The strategy the Commission is coming up with the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 with the goal of twenty billion spending for biodiversity will become reality. It's not enough. Just agree on the strategy. We need to ensure that it will be part of the budget.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), And this is what we are fighting for. And this is where we need to see the German president move. And the last one of these elements I would like to mention here is on the gender equality, on the gender equality. It has been part of the European Union and about the work also related to the budget for many years.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), But we are not seeing any kind of satisfying development. And right now we're covid is taking place and where we know that it actually is hitting gender differently, we need to see some more action. And this is why we are fighting for gender impact assessment related to to the interinstitutional agreement.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), And this is why we need to have some more action there and to become much more concrete, also related to the gender impact related to the programmes we are having in the European budget. And of course, also related to these kind of elements, we had some development in the last weeks in the meetings we had with the German presidency. But as it is now, it's not enough.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), And we really need to ensure that we are not just talking, but that we also have the possibility that we have some mechanisms to ensure some development there in the next year through the MFF. This is basically what we are fighting for.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Rasmus ANDRESEN (Greens/EFA, DE), And now, should I give the word to ability or will you do that? You can elaborate. Rule of law is, of course, also in horizontal issue. Right. And yeah. So I will give the word to.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), Thank you very much Rasmus. So quick point on the rule of law. In all of our meetings, and trilaterals we always have a point on the rule of law. This is to remind the German presidency. This is an absolutely vital point for the European Parliament. We need to make progress on this point.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), This week you would have seen the proposed from the German presidency. Now that we have to recognise the fact that that is a step forward, we've been asking for the Council to take a position so that we can then start negotiations with the European Parliament. So that's good in terms of form. But unfortunately, in terms of substance, the proposal is weak.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), And I'm sure you'll see in the debate in rule of law here that will take place in a few minutes. What we want is a mechanism which protects rule of law, and there needs to be sanctions that need to be an effective mechanism. There needs to be a system that we can actually activate, even if there isn't unanimity in the Council.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;rie HAYER (RE, FR), We need to be able to protect citizens. And this is very important for the European Parliament. Our aim is very clear. Obviously, negotiations will be led by the rapporteurs on the rule of law. However, we will not close the MFF and own resources negotiations unless we have made significant progress on the rule of law point. As made clear by the heads of the political groups to the German presidency.