François KALFON

What François KALFON has said (19)

• 2026-02-02 “E-000413/2026 Answer given by Mr Tzitzikostas on behalf of the European Commission 1. The Commission acting on behalf of the Union rigorously enforces the EU-Qatar Air Transport Agreement 1 ’s robust financial transparency provisions, with support from EU Member States. It regularly exchanges financial information with the Qatari authorities, allowing both the Commission and Member States to review the reports and assess compliance with the Agreement. The Qatari authorities have consistently provided answers to information requested by the Commission, including the granting of access to confidential information and internal company documents. Qatar Airways belongs to Qatar Airways Group, which published its annual financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. These are certified by the Opinion of the company’s independent external auditor. The Commission is therefore satisfied with the engagement on financial matters with the Qatari authorities. 2. As a result, the Commission on behalf of the Union does not intend to trigger the procedure laid out in Article 7(5) of the Agreement. 3. The EU-Qatar agreement was negotiated in full compliance with the negotiation mandate granted to the Commission by the Member States in Council. Negotiations were conducted in a fully transparent manner with the close involvement of representatives of Member States and stakeholders. The outcome of the negotiations was then endorsed unanimously by Member States and the agreement was signed by all Member States and the EU. There are at present no grounds to suspend its implementation. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/agree_internation/2021/1920/oj/eng.”
  State Aid
• 2024-10-30 “E-002341/2024 Answer given by Executive Vice-President Séjourné on behalf of the European Commission Short-term rentals can influence the availability and affordability of housing, notably in tourism hotspots. At the same time, short-term rentals can also help boost investments in local housing markets and support renovation, notably of vacant houses. Firstly, in this context, authorities can increase transparency by requiring hosts to register, and platforms to provide data on short-term rentals, notably thanks to Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 1 . Moreover, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 2 requires online platforms to ensure, among others, the traceability of the traders providing services on their platforms and to design their interfaces so that traders can comply with all the obligations required by either national or EU law. The Regulation introduces additional obligations for very large platforms, such as Booking.com. Furthermore, Directive (EU) 2021/514 3 provides for the exchange of information between platforms and national authorities 4 for tax purposes levelling the playing field in taxation. Given the measures above, the Commission has not envisaged, for the time being, to bring forward any legislative initiative to regulate or impose a limit on properties and overnight stays but will continue to explore what can be done to tackle systemic issues with short-term accommodation rentals. The Commission intends to launch a policy dialogue with stakeholders to better understand the relationship between short-term rentals and the availability and affordability of housing and identify best practices that are in line Directive 2006/123/EC 5 . Finally, the Commission has set up a Task Force for Housing that started on 1 st February 2025 to support Member States to tackle issues related to the housing crisis. 1 Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724. 2 Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market For Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act). 3 Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 of 22 March 2021 amending Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. 4 In the Member States of those platforms and then also among Member States. 5 Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market.”
  EU housing policy · EU regulation of short-term rentals
• 2024-09-18 “E-001759/2024 Answer given by Mr Hoekstra on behalf of the European Commission The Commission’s current plan to support rail freight transport is the 2020 Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy 1 , which sets out milestones to increase rail freight transport by 50% until 2030 and to double it until 2050 compared with 2015. The development of rail freight transport will be driven by operators attentive to the customer needs supported by policy initiatives addressing barriers to market access, technical interoperability, multimodal integration and cross-border coordination. Policy action at EU level is particularly relevant for rail freight transport, as more than 50% of rail freight transport is cross-border. The aforementioned Strategy targets issues such as infrastructure development, capacity/traffic management and innovative automation technologies, e.g. the digital automatic coupling. Many actions have been implemented since its adoption in 2020. Key examples include the adoption of the new trans-European transport network (TEN-T) Regulation 2 , the Greening Freight Package 3 , including the Commission’s proposal for a regulation on the use of railway infrastructure capacity 4 , as well as ongoing work to deploy the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) 5 and the Digital Automatic Coupling 6 . The Commission also pursued its enforcement of EU legislation to promote the single European market for rail and multimodal transport services. The Commission President-elect’s mission letter to the Commissioner-designate for Sustainable Transport and Tourism confirms the Commission’s commitment to developing rail freight transport in the EU. Finally, since the formal investigation on alleged aid granted to Fret SNCF is still ongoing, the Commission cannot give any further indication relating to it. 1 COM(2020) 789 final, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0789 2 Regulation (EU) 2024/1679, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32024R1679 3 COM(2023) 440 final. 4 COM(2023) 443 final, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52023PC0443 5 See in particular https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/infrastructure-and-investment/trans-europeantransport-network-ten-t/european-rail-traffic-management-system_en and https://www.era.europa.eu/domains/infrastructure/european-rail-traffic-management-system-ertms_en 6 See in particular https://rail-research.europa.eu/european-dac-delivery-programme/”
  Energy (green transition)
• “Mr. President commissioner Europe is missing the boat when it comes to achieving energy sovereignty Europe still imports 90% of its oil including from Russia with its shadow fleet. This is simply not acceptable. It's important that we manage to achieve sovereignty. Bio and e-fuels can help us make a clean exit from fossil fuels. That would be 60% less and 80% for the other one. We can produce this in Europe. However, if we don't have the courage to move forward, this project will remain a pipe dream in the US and Asia. Factories are producing 50 kilotonnes of E-fuels per year. In Europe, we don't have a single major production plant. How do we get out of this blind alley? We have to confirm the mandates for EU so as to encourage investment. The EU should invest in enormous sums in in the industry, thereby producing thousands of jobs. But don't let's deceive ourselves. The big oil producers have been have earned a lot of money with fossil fuels. In the future, if they refuse to invest in future, fuels will have to force them to do it, as we've done with the car industry.”
  EU approach to energy security (home-made vs import sources)
• “Honourable members, ladies and gentlemen, from the Commission Sinn is committing fraud. Teemu is committing fraud. It continues to do so. In Berlin. Rotterdam tomorrow. Thousands of fraudulent parcels ordered on Black Friday will arrive for Christmas and flood Europe. As other colleagues have said, if a European citizen were to carry out this level of fraud, they would be arrested. This morning I heard that an An unscrupulous importer in France, imported these childlike sex dolls in France and was arrested by the police. And yet, at the same time, Shean and Temu continue to export to the 27 member states of the European Union. Shean is laughing at us. Their representatives have twice refused to appear at parliamentary committees in the European Parliament in France. They have refused to speak to our committee. If they were innocent, would they refuse to plead their case? They are scorning parliamentary committees. There will be a case in Paris tomorrow. France is calling for suspension. We cannot dodge this question. I support what Pierre Jouvet said. We are calling for a committee of inquiry. We have to shed light on the scale of fraud. We need sanctions. We need to force them to appear in front of the European Parliament.”
  EU policy on custom fee on non-EU imports
• “(16:43:50 – 16:45:07): Madame Chair, thank you. And thank you for the report from the court of auditors. Today, daily mobility is something that's not focused on in EU transport policy. We focus a lot on cross border transport, and that's good. That's what Europe's for. But if we want to really see the green deal come to life, then we need to ensure mobility for people that is in line with their income. Just some figures. 75% of inhabitants of the EU live in cities. To see real decarbonization, we need a specific budgetary line focused on urban mobility, which isn't the case currently. So my question is simple. Without this kind of funding, how is the court planning to ensure that we can finance small electric cars for short journeys or to link up Toulouse or Lyon or big European cattle capitals or to ensure that the European fleet moves towards biofuels or electric? The EU has to be greener, but transport policy has to be able to focus on workers and those of modest incomes.”
  EU funding for transportation
• “Sheen may get away without too many costs here because the Commission is discussing the matter. Looking ahead for years, you're talking about ongoing investigations, but what about the fines and sanctions? Since the DSA entered into force, we've had 14 inquiries started. Two have been concluded, no sanctions imposed. What about the inquiry into AliExpress for selling illegal products? What about the inquiry into Temu for selling non-compliant products? What about a request for information said to shine about sale of dangerous goods. We are calling for sanctions to be applied. When you look in the mirror, when you and the commission look in the mirror, when you think about Black Friday and the 450 million Europeans exposed to fraud, their health put at risk the integrity and well-being of our children, put at risk, our businesses being threatened. We don't just want endless discussions. We want action. We are here to represent European people. They should not face these fraudulent practices. When will sanctions be applied? What sort of sanctions and what sort of action can European citizens expect before Christmas?”
  Liability for online marketplaces
• “I'm gonna continue in French so thank you very much to Katrina for having presented on my behalf that means that I can focus on my response and I wanted to recall a few points. I'm pleased to see there is a lot of agreement as regards the draft opinion we need to have a European space union I think this is something we need to focus on. My understanding is that member states had been less enthusiastic than us about this European law but I think it's something that we should have as an objective it will be replacing three thirteen national laws. There was also a press article this morning about the competitiveness gap between the US and Europe so more than ever we do need a space law. Second point on small businesses there are exceptions set out in the initial text but we didn't think they necessarily bore on the right subjects you can't have exemptions for cybersecurity between larger and smaller businesses but you do need to ensure that small businesses have support because there is a new space sector which is really the second leg of our space success story. When you think about Elon Musk and his capacity to deploy so many satellites in such a short space of time and to have a reusable launcher in Europe we need to have traditional players but also we need news space so we need to support those companies and we're proposing a one stop shop. The Commission seemed to agree on equivalence the devil here is in the detail it's good for us to have a single market thanks to our legislation it's easier for European businesses so then we can bring greater growth as the Draghi report suggests but it's important that the equivalence regime authorizes third companies to enter the European space market and we need to be clear that we if we are gonna have binding rules we don't want them to be just exempt from the rules because of self regulation. This is something we're going to have to watch very clearly and then of course there are opportunities when it comes to European players who might get market share in third countries but we don't want this to be a highway without any rules whereas we have too many rules on the other side. So that's one of the points that came up and then as regards the various subjects that have been raised tax sovereignty resilience we have proposed a number of measures to combat hybrid threats which we see every day in our lives for example strengthening the filtering of foreign investments and also dealing with foreign interference these are key points. Therefore the debate between the co rapporteurs the shadows the Commission needs to make progress we need to be more aware even though we're talking about attacks here is mainly civilian we need to be aware of the level of interference all of us I think and I'm looking forward to the discussion in the run up to the seventeenth and I'm sorry that once again that I was late as a result of the vicissitudes of European rail transport as a member of the rail commit of transport committee I'm constantly trying to improve those conditions thank you.”
  EU competences on space policy
• “Pollution. Pollution per passenger, in carbon terms, has been halved over 210 years. Well, from 20 to 10, in fact. But the increase in passenger traffic in aviation sector means that. So we've got double the emissions over that period. So there's a question of uh SAF and bio SAF, but so we're going to have to wait till 20 to 30 to be able to respond to demand and really have availability for the aviation sector. We're going to have a significant increase in that, the production of these fuels. Now you've given a brilliant presentation. I agree with everything that you said, but there's no robust and operational industrial sector So producing is off and the price is extremely high. Much, much higher than these little arrows in your slides. So by 2030 it looks like that's going to be a bit of an impasse. How are we going to be able to cope with that to come 2030? Uh, what about, uh, regulatory um, limits? Uh, there's a very binding timetable, uh, for electrification, for example, how about setting some deadlines for when these are going to have to be used? Uh, you know, they're just kind of waiting for the whole thing to collapse for us to make laws simpler and cut red tape so that people can, can, uh, give up with the decarbonisation. And that's what some of the operators are hoping for. So we need, uh, binding rules on the oil producers and petrol and fuel producers, but I don't think they're going to be able to meet refuel EU aviation goals, particularly for itself, because I think we're stuck at a bit of an impasse at this stage.”
  Decarbonisation of aviation sector
• “Madam Chair, chair colleagues, just like to say thank you to colleagues for giving us their opinions on the text. You know, it's euphemism saying that some people are less enthusiastic than others. I mean, I understand that. But just 2 points, I think. Some of the background, I think, is important. When it comes with, PHV, electric, and, combustion engine, we are ready in Europe to move to electric. Don't look at figures from 10 years ago. Look at 2026 data. 20%, that's what the that's the share we have. So that was 15% last time electric vehicles. Now we've gone up 5% in a year, but don't go back to '23, 28 4. 2026 are at 20% since the the war in Iran. Things are changing because European consumers, they do want to move away from being dependent on all of this expensive fuel. This isn't a dogmatic green deal text. Don't look at that way. And I've heard lots of ideology. I think it's an opportunity. You talked about China a lot. We need to play catch up when it comes to China. You need to tell the truth here. When it comes to decarbonization, we're 10 years behind. So this is support for companies and not a break on them. What we're do specifically? We need an ambitious agreement to electrify corporate fleets because, this is a less polluting resource, but also it's cheaper, and it'll be more European in the future. And, obviously, accessible, affordable for working class people. This is already true for smaller vehicles. Ford actually invented the car. 40 t is a model that, wearing class people can afford, and that's what we need to focus on. We need to look at, real compromises. You know, all groups left, right, center, we d we needed to work together to, compromise instead of providing delays for our, workers. So let's not, move away from transition, and we need to move forward to decolonization. It's not by looking in the, rearview mirror that we're”
  Corporate fleet electrification: binding zero-emission quotas vs. voluntary approach
• “Thank you. Chair. I will speak in French. Thank you. Rapporteur. Honourable members, the commission proposal is one that the S&D can support. It offers necessary clarification for digitisation of registration and certificates to fight against fraud. Looking at the draft opinion, I would oppose delaying entry into force to seven years. That is an unreasonable delay. I support the four years suggested by the commission when it comes to checks for new registration that would lead to administrative burden in the single market. Now, on my amendments, the aim is to prevent digital fragmentation. We are in favour of the four year default, but if drivers look for a paper version of their driver's license, they should receive it for free. The commission needs to check cyber security for the Move Hub platform. Given the daily attacks we've seen on our digital infrastructure, we need to look at storage and transmission of data via the hub. We need to ensure it's secure. On bicycles, I suggest that we look at fighting the scourge of bike thefts. We need to look at, to use of the of bicycles throughout Europe. In France, for example, we have some 420,000 thefts in France in 2020 for 2.9 million bikes stolen across Europe each year, 331 stolen each hour. So over 400 stolen in the past hour or so since the committee meeting began. So we need to look at the identification numbers for bicycles. So that's the case in France and Belgium. Using a register would make it possible to track down three times as many stolen bikes. I would like to thank my colleagues, the shadow rapporteurs, for all their work. We will find a satisfactory compromise, one that is useful for this opinion. Thank you very much.”
  Driving licences
• “Mr. Burton, thank you for being with us. This is a very serious situation. Under Donald Trump, the United States is now carrying out diplomatic terrorism by banning you and representatives of NGOs from entering the United States. Why? Because you are among the architects of the Digital Services Act. You are part of the very closed club of only about ten Europeans targeted by these types of sanctions by the US administration before you. It was the judge of the International Court, Nicholas Eric, a French parliamentarian, who denounced the dangers of the social media site. We are being treated as scapegoats. Targeting European citizens and legislators means that Trump is trying to intimidate and punish us. He is sanctioning us. And miss von der Leyen is looking elsewhere, is looking away rather than defending us. And even worse, miss de Sousa, in the so-called border of peace, went along with the US narrative. So, Mr. Burton, if you were in miss von der Leyen's place, what would you do to react to these sanctions? Thank you in advance for your reply.”
  EU-US relations
• “President. Commissioner. Colleagues. The current state of the world says that we have to strengthen our defences, but our infrastructure is not up to the job. In December, um, it took 45 days for some tanks to go from France to a base in Romania because of the different track gauges, because of bureaucracy. 45 days. It takes Russia less time to invade an EU country, a European country. We have to adapt our infrastructure to the new context, the new Cold War. The Commission has announced 60 billion in investment. But where is this money coming from? Without secure investments, there's going to be a huge gap between the announcements when it hits up against the wall of reality. We need 100 billion over six years. So this means we're going to have to take some of the 800 billion from rearm EU, um, so that they can be used for mixed civil and military uses. Without that, it's going to be impossible to switch to an economy that is preparing for war or trying to preserve peace. And, um, we really have to be prepared for Russian aggression. Thank you.”
  EU transport infrastructure integration
• “Dear colleagues, creating new categories for small electric vehicles is 1 of the key components of this text because it will make e vehicles truly accessible. For various years, automobile manufacturers have had high end vehicles, more than low cost vehicles. And as a result, the working class can't have access to e vehicles. It's 10 to 15% less expensive to have an e vehicle than a hybrid vehicle or a combustion engine vehicle, and that's going to grow in the future. There's real demand in my country. For example, sales of e vehicles have increased 10% in 1 year. Since last year, they've gone up to 20 or 30% market share. That's significant progress, creating these new categories for EVANS will also move in this direction, and the text the vehicles referred to in the text would be part of the corporate fleets as here too, regulation, and so on. Now the definition of the 4 meters 20 is a bit is a bit too long for our view. The aim is to popularize models models. So it's good to ensure workers can pay for affordable small vehicles, but I think it would be even better if even more of those could be produced in Europe. Thank you.”
  Road transport environmental policy
• “Thank you very much to all the shadow rapporteurs and the Commission. I take note of everything you've said. I think that this is a quality report, and there's a lot of agreements when it comes to the equivalence regimes, the link between third countries and member states and European Union rules. Several shadows have said they want to end that. Well, I'm open to that option if the majority is in favour of that. Now on the exemptions for launches from third countries. Now, of course, it's important to have launches available and to be pragmatic. The exemption regimes don't. Allow for fair rules for launches in third countries in my view. We therefore need fair rules now on new space and SMEs. Of course we are open to this. Several people have commented on this today. We need to have funding. We need to have a single point of contact as well. So the SMEs are able to access the standards of historical operators without reducing standards and rules which are imposed on everybody for the environment and cybersecurity. So there are just a couple of comments that I wanted to make. I'm very much looking forward to continuing to work with colleagues and to enrich the Itre report on this, on this topic. It would be the first European act on this topic and this will Complements rules at national level.”
  EU competences on space policy
• “We, the equivalent regime for third countries, does represent some problems for the single market in space. That's one that came up. It's important for us to stop any kind of distortion of competition between member states and third countries. Then there's also new space. The space ecosystem includes many SMEs and start ups, and we agreed that we must support them in their implementation. Now, there may be exemptions under derogations, but in my view this would be dangerous when it comes to cybersecurity because cyber security is non-negotiable. I also would like to see a dedicated office to help all of the stakeholders, which will be the champions of tomorrow. Now, in our preliminary discussions, we have discussed this. I want us to protect ourselves from hybrid threats and reaffirm our independence and sovereignty in Europe. This is why I have proposed bolstering the screening for foreign investment, in line with the text on screening foreign investments, and also fighting interference from foreign actors in space. I would be delighted to listen to what you have to say, and also to continue working together to reach a satisfying compromise on this text. I've had very good cooperation with Elena Donazzan from Itri. She is very much looking forward to our conclusions on this text in relation to the single market. So thank you very much for your attention so much.”
  EU competences on space policy
• “Well, the commission would like a high speed network between. European capitals. But quite a lot of French people don't have a railway station near where they live. But they want an envelope. What about a number for daily transport? Of course, you need to increase speed on working on the corridors and electric. Electrifying these stretches. Obviously we need this. We need to better connect our ports. €1 invested in transport is also €1 invested in public procurement, in tourism, in logistics and defence logistics, in and in decarbonisation. And if we really want to decarbonise and improve daily lives of Europeans, then we need to have our team has put forward put in place more quickly. So we're talking here about our urban railways here. It's important to increase high speed rails between Paris and Berlin, for example. But I think it's better to have 40 new buses bought for mid-size cities. So therefore I would ask for. I would like extra support for our people's everyday needs when it comes to transport. Thank you.”
  EU funding for transportation
• “Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner. The EU has managed to reduce its emissions by 37%, but we've seen an increase from 2010 and it's going to be 44% 34% of emissions from transport because of personal cars, which is 86% of the distance covered by transport. So this explains what's happening about roads. But what about the long term? We need to develop railways. We need to look at cross border regions as well. Um, we need to look at the daily transport where this emission kicks in. 99% of the journeys are made there. About 75% of Europeans live in urban areas. It'll be 84% soon. To deal with these challenges, 26 projects of local and regional trains are being proposed, and that would require 18 to €20 million. You'd have to increase the EU budget up to €100 billion to be able to cover that. So, colleagues, if we don't change anything, then carbon neutrality, neutrality by 2050, that will never be achieved. Thank you.”
  EU support of rail transport
• “Madam president. Madam president, colleagues in 2019, Thomas Cook went bankrupt and 140,000 Europeans were stranded abroad and had to be repatriated in catastrophic circumstances. The cancellations and vouchers imposed endless claims for reimbursement. There were often flat rates that have been paid, including car hire, accommodation, travel and so on thanks to the socialists. We've achieved significant progress. As of tomorrow, if a company goes bankrupt, there will be refunds and free repatriation. If there's a new pandemic or natural disaster, customers will be able to cancel their trip with no penalties. There will be a refund or. Refund or voucher. There have been lobbies and it's been the EPP trying to change things, but cash refunds within 14 days has been achieved. I'm fully determined to ensure that people can travel with peace of mind, and I say to my colleagues in different political groups, why not come on the side of the consumer and vote in favour of this programme?”
  EU policy on aviation safety