Henrike Hahn, member of the European Parliament (The Greens/EFA), industrial policy speaker, member of the Industry Committee and deputy member of the Budget Committee, deputy speaker of the German Greens and shadow rapporteur of the Greens/EFA for the EU budget 2022, comments on today's proposal from the European Commission for the revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework and the EU Own Resources:

“Unfortunately, the Commission's proposal to revise the multiannual financial framework does not live up to the challenges of our time.

If we want to keep green European industrial policy competitive in times of a global subsidy race, we need courageous, well-financed industrial policy funding pots and fresh new funds. The Commission's proposal is clearly too weak in this respect.

Important industrial policy projects such as securing and diversifying the supply of raw materials using CRMA require solid and ambitious financing - especially from the EU budget.

The European Parliament across political groups has already called for fresh money for fresh initiatives to promote the semiconductor industry in the negotiations on the EU Chips Act.

With the increase of among others InvestEU and the Innovation Fund by 10 billion euros, the Commission is now clearly not delivering on its promise of an EU sovereignty fund.

The member states must give up their blocking position to the sovereignty fund. German finance minister, Christian Lindner, must finally openly declare himself on that matter. We will see if he wants to actively slow down the project of an ambitious EU sovereignty fund with a clear need for financing to support European, competitive and green industrial policy instead of standing shoulder to shoulder with the companies in Europe.

We need further EU funds for humanitarian aid, reconstruction in Ukraine, rising administrative costs due to inflation and interest payments for the recovery and resilience fund.

In order to prevent rising interest costs from becoming a heavy burden for current and future EU programs such as Horizon or Erasmus, new Own Resources must finally be introduced.

I very much welcome today’s Commission proposal in this regard and hope that it will put the appropriate pressure on the negotiations in the Council.”

 

I would be happy to answer any further questions.