Jacek PROTAS

Policy topics Jacek PROTAS is active on

What Jacek PROTAS has said (4)

• 2025-10-29 “E-004242/2025 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission The Commission remains fully committed to ensuring a level playing field for the EU ferroalloy sector within the framework of EU trade defence instruments. Accordingly, the Commission imposed a definitive safeguard measure following an investigation that established that increased imports of certain alloys were causing serious injury to EU producers. The measure entered into force on 18 November 2025 and will remain applicable for a period of three years. Safeguard measures apply erga omnes, and no country contributing to the injury can be excluded. Furthermore, the Agreement on the European Economic Area 1 does not preclude the imposition of safeguard measures among contracting parties, if serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties of a sectorial or regional nature liable to persist are arising. Given the significant and increasing import volumes from Iceland and Norway, accounting for 47.4% of total EU imports, and their prices being below EU production costs, the Commission considers that imports from Iceland and Norway cause serious economic difficulties of a sectorial nature. Thus, they cannot be considered non-injurious and therefore cannot be exempted. The Commission is monitoring trade flows to ensure that existing sanctions on aluminium, steel, and iron imports from Russia remain fully effective and are not undermined through circumvention. In this context, any decision to extend sanctions to additional products, including ferroalloys is for the Council to take. Any proposal will be based on a thorough evaluation of evidence, consultation with Member States, and alignment with the EU’s broader strategic and economic interests. 1 http://data.europa.eu/eli/agree_internation/1994/1/oj.”
  EU policy on custom fee on non-EU imports · EU-Russia relations (from March 2022)
• “Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will speak Polish. Ladies and gentlemen. This first draft opinion. Reflects the consistent and long standing position of the Committee on the protection of the EU budget, control of expenditure, and the role of Parliament as the discharge authority. Most of the proposed amendments are based on the recently adopted uh reports and opinions. This draft therefore does not set out new directions, but consistently develops our existing approach. A key issue that runs through almost all the amendments is the Commission's proposal to generalize. Generalize the model of implementation based on so-called financing, not linked to costs. This is inspired by the RF. The Court of Auditors has repeatedly pointed out that this model significantly increases the risk of irregularities, fraud, double financing, and loss of transparency and traceability of EU funds. Meanwhile, the proposal for national and regional partnership plans goes even further than the solutions adopted in the RF. Operation costs would not be verified in real terms either by the Member states, all the authority's audit authorities or the commission and payment claims would be checked by member states themselves. Of course, we are not opposed to simplifications for small beneficiaries. On the contrary, we support the use of lump sums and simplified accounting methods. However, we cannot accept a situation that projects worth millions of euros would be reimbursed without any verification of actual costs. It's difficult to imagine the construction of a railway line worth 10 or €20 million, without verifying the actual expenditure. This cannot be accepted in this context. We emphasize the need for a mandatory use of an interoperable risk detection system arachnid, thus strengthening the role of the EPPO and ensuring that it has adequate resources, better coordination of the anti-fraud system at union level, and ensuring that member States without an opt out clause could participate in the EPPO as a condition for access to EU funds.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “And this is important. This is a fundamental issue if we want to have a real decentralization. I would also like to point out to the fact that even though the European Commission is preparing the strategy for eastern border regions, this is the special strategy which will be published on the 18th of February. But in one of the amendments, I am talking about the necessity, necessity to Particularly support these regions, all Eastern European regions which are very close to what is happening in Ukraine, and in particular those regions that are bordering on Belarus and Ukraine. Because these regions have felt not only the hybrid war have been affected by hybrid war, but these have been affected economically. This is a very difficult neighborhood, and I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that we need to support the urban functional areas. This is not only about earmarking funds for less developed rural areas, but we also have urban functional areas which are very important. And this is something that you mentioned. Mr. chairman, we have to go back to the. N plus three. We have to go back to this N plus three scheme if we really want to keep strategic investments as part of the cohesion policy, that where we understood it so far. Thank you very much. I am also working for the committee. I am a draftsperson for the committee to this report, but I will present my arguments in a different agreement.”
  Cohesion and rural funding
• “A significant number of amendments also concerns the linking of the new proposals with the rule of law. Conditionality mechanism. In our view, the proposal for national and regional partnership plans creates a parallel, almost identical mechanism which risks weakening the existing conditionality regulation and reducing it to a last resort instrument. In practice, there is a risk that the regulation will only become a tool used as a last resort. Another group of amendments relates to the transition to a performance based budgeting model. We emphasize that without a real possibility of tracking the flow of funds and without consistent and comparable performance indicators, such a model may, in practice, weaken the Parliament's ability to discharge to perform its discharge function. The ECA has been pointing out for years that budget implementation should be measured on the basis of results, rather than outputs. The current proposal does not provide for that. We would also like to draw attention to the need to strengthen local and regional authorities, provide them with adequate technical support, and maintain a horizontal approach in order to avoid the fragmentation of the Union Budget into 27 separate national plans, which would lack synergy and added value at European level. Simplification must not mean abandoning cost control, transparency and accountability. In conclusion, this draft opinion aims to ensure that in the new. Mf. Mf simplification does not come at the expense of transparency, control and protection of EU financial interests and that the role of Parliament as the discharge authority is fully preserved. Thank you very much for your attention.”
  Discharge of EU institutions and agencies