Tomasz BUCZEK

Policy topics Tomasz BUCZEK is active on

What Tomasz BUCZEK has said (21)

• 2025-09-10 “E-003509/2025 Answer given by Mr Hansen on behalf of the European Commission During the trade negotiations with Ukraine and Mercosur countries, the Commission duly considered the sensitivity of some agricultural products and limited concessions by way of tariff quotas, coupled with strong safeguards. Moreover, concessions to Mercosur countries will be introduced gradually thus mitigating any abrupt effects on the EU market. For Ukraine, new concessions are conditioned on Ukraine’s gradual alignment to EU production standards to level the playing field vis-à-vis EU farmers. These provisions address EU farmers’ interests and help to avoid a disturbance of the EU market. The Commission has also secured improved market access for EU products to those markets. As stated, Mercosur agreement comes with strong built-in safeguards but, in the unlikely event that the implementation of this agreement results in market disturbances, the Commission is ready to support farmers on the basis of the Unity Safety Net proposed as part of the next multiannual financial framework 1 . A high intervention price is not an effective public policy tool to address farmers’ income and ensure competitiveness. By creating artificial demand it would incentivise production instead of adjusting supply to demand. In the long run, this would generate structural oversupply and new problems. Having intervention prices disconnected from normal market price developments allows them to function as a genuine safety net. This increases competitiveness and market orientation of agriculture. Income support to farmers is granted in a more efficient way through the existing direct payments. The Common Agricultural Policy also includes risk management tools and investment measures supporting farmers to increase their competitiveness and resilience. 1 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, ‘A dynamic EU Budget for the priorities of the future – the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034’, 16.7.2025, COM (2025) 570 final/2.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur · Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
• 2025-09-03 “E-003376/2025 Answer given by Mr Várhelyi on behalf of the European Commission The Commission carries out controls in accordance with a multi-annual plan aimed at monitoring the implementation and enforcement of EU legislation on food safety. The main principle is risk-based prioritisation, audits are not chosen randomly but based on risk analysis and strategic priorities. The risk factors include, inter alia, past audit results, type of products, higher-risk products (like raw meat or seafood) trigger more frequent audits, complaints or notifications, i.e. information from RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) or regulatory changes. The work programme with the audits carried out in 2024 and 2025 is publicly available 1 . Furthermore, the audits foreseen in 2025 (from July to December) are publicly available 2 . One of the objectives for the 2021-2025 plan is to verify Member States’ compliance with the applicable EU food safety legislation governing the production and placing on the market of fishery products in most Member States. For example, in 2024, Estonia, France, Italy, Poland, and Portugal were audited, and for 2025, audits in Cyprus, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Malta have been carried out or are planned. 1 https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2875/963872. 2 https://food.ec.europa.eu/document/download/7b379fb9-f02c-4671-90153b8aa3297255_en?filename=hfaa_prog_en_2025_07-12.pdf.”
  Environmental regulation of fisheries
• 2025-07-16 “P-002918/2025 Answer given by Mr Hoekstra on behalf of the European Commission The Commission adopted, on 16 July 2025, a proposal 1 to revise the Tobacco Taxation Directive 2 . Tobacco consumption is acknowledged as one of the greatest avoidable health risks in the EU. At the same time, health authorities warn of the risks related to a new generation of tobaccorelated products which fall outside the scope of the current Tobacco Taxation Directive. The minimum rates proposed for these new products reflect Member States’ practices and are based on overall health considerations while also addressing the risk to fiscal revenues and the internal market due to the non-taxation of these new products. Higher tobacco taxes and prices have been demonstrated to be the single most effective measure to reduce overall tobacco use, induce current smokers to quit, reduce uptake by young people, lower consumption among those who continue to smoke, improve population health, and increase tobacco tax revenues. Therefore, the revision of the Directive aims to increase minimum tax rates applicable to traditional tobacco products and introduce new minimum tax rates for tobacco-related products. 1 Proposal for a Council Directive on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to tobacco and tobacco related products (recast), COM (2025) 580 final. 2 Council Directive 2011/64/EU of 21 June 2011 on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to manufactured tobacco, OJ L 176, 5.7.2011, p. 24–36.”
  Smoking regulation · EU competences on taxation
• 2025-02-26 “E-000843/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Each disbursement of repayable support (loan) has a maturity of 30 years from the date of disbursement. The repayment of the principal amount of a disbursement starts after a grace period of 10 years from the date of disbursement and is to be spread evenly in equal repayments over the remaining maturity of the disbursement. In accordance with Article 24 of the Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility 1 , the disbursement of the financial contribution (non-repayable support / grants) and, where relevant, loan, is provided in instalments. Upon completion of the agreed milestones and targets indicated in the Council Implementing Decision on the approval of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan of Poland 2 , the Member State submits to the Commission a duly justified request for payment of grants and, where relevant, loan. Such requests for payment may be submitted twice a year. The disbursement of grants and, where relevant, loans is made based on a positive assessment by the Commission of the satisfactory fulfilment of milestones and targets covered by the submitted request for payment, and on positive opinion of the Economic and Financial Committee of the Commission’s assessment. The amounts for each instalment for grants and loans are indicated in the Council Implementing Decision Annex 3 , Section 2: Financial Support. The paid-out amounts are adjusted, deducting the share of pre-financing paid out already to the Member State on a prorata basis. 1 OJ L 57, 18.2.2021 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2021.057.01.0017.01.ENG&toc=OJ%3AL%3A2021%3A057%3ATO C). 2 ST 9728 2022 INIT; ST 9728 2022 ADD 1 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52024PC0284&qid=1749734753921). 3 Council Implementing Decision on the approval of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan of Poland of 1 July 2024, ST 9728 2022 INIT; ST 9728 2022 ADD 1 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52024PC0284).”
  Conditions to access EU budget
• “Mr. Commissioner, unfortunately, Ukraine is treating the European Union as an ATM, which is always available and we all know that this money will never be returned. This is no loan. This is a gift to Ukraine. There is no guarantee that Ukraine will pay reparations because usually countries that lose the war pay reparations. But the situation is quite different. Russians are gaining ground and Ukrainians are defending themselves. And then we have also the issue of corruption in Ukraine. And there is no system for the supervision of these funds. And the third thing is I think we should really take care Of the procedures that should be in line with the European treaties. There was no unanimous decision on this with ECR.”
  Russia-Ukraine conflict (10th term)
• “Thank you. A citizens package rather a package against citizens. Another billion to the North Sea windmills, batteries, all to make a Polish miner or a Polish entrepreneur and a Polish family pays for the climate fantasies of Brussels. We want. We don't want green communism. We want cheap energy. Unfortunately, Poland is the main victim of this madness. We have a minister, a Ministry of Climate, but he prefers to save the planet rather than saving Polish companies and its citizens. We don't want to be an energy colony of Germany. We have our own technologies. We have coal. You've asked us to close our minds. But if we wouldn't have had our coal fired power plants last winter in Poland would have been deadly. For many people. With the choice of climate, ideology and welfare of citizens. We choose welfare of citizens. We choose energy security. Cheap electricity for citizens. We choose energy sovereignty and not Brussels. Thank you.”
  EU approach to energy security (home-made vs import sources)
• “Madam president, Mr. Commissioner, today I would like to hear from Commissioner about savings and austerity, but not austerity at the expense of farmers or development investments. We are waiting for the announcements of cuts in the Byzantine like bureaucratic system of the EU. Your credibility will hit the wall if we do not hear this. Do we really need to maintain over 30 executive agencies? Do we have to maintain the legion of officials dealing with climate and promoting ideological social projects from among 50,000 well-paid EU officials. At least a couple of thousand are responsible for serious and impactful mistakes. We have lost competitiveness because these officials do not want to listen to anyone. Therefore, we must reform the European Commission. We must fire Euro bureaucrats and only then talk about new ambitions, because now your excellent ideas are a nightmare for our citizens, unlike you. We are listening to people. They expect us to defend them against your Green Deal and mass immigration, which is out of your control. Thank you.”
  Discharge of EU institutions and agencies
• “(14:44:02 – 14:46:37): Chair, commissioner. There is no doubt, and I think we would all agree that we are now facing major challenges as individual member states, as a continent as a whole, geopolitics, economic crises, individual problems related to the budgets and the budget of the EU. And case in point would be the draft amending budgets that keep on flowing our our way and actually make the whole picture more opaque. Maybe we should drop this practice and stay more consistent. When it comes to other sections, our pro our position is as follows. If on the table, we have a druggies report that was actually produced at the request of Ursula von der Leyen, clearly says that we don't we are not competitive in today's world, that we have tons of developmental problems, if I can put it that way, then we what we expect is courageous decisions and not maintaining status quo and floating on the surface. So when I hear that various new for instance, new posts will be frozen and no new people will be employed, well, this is not enough as an explanation. When we as MEPs vote on budgets for various institutions, and as you know very well, commissioner, there are dozens of them. What we expect is the following. We want the European Commission to be courageous to focus more on a real red tape or anti red tape policy and not only keep on freezing posts, but maybe look for places where, the number of posts could be really cut. I think many European countries and peoples of European countries think that European administration has grown to be too big. Obviously, the comparisons that you've made, for instance, with the, city of Paris or other examples that you gave. But if you look at the drug report and the proposals in the drug report, you will see that we won't achieve that, through anything else but real cuts in administration. Thank you.”
  Size of EU budget
• “Thank you. The EU has shown that solidarity is wonderful, but it's just a word. At the beginning of the pandemic, Poland was looking for, um, uh, and other countries just blocked that. So where was the solidarity? The commission organises joint procurement. And what about the secret deals and the lack of A possibility that led to producing vaccines that were just binned. I hope that you will show more solidarity to Poland, given that we lost so much money for unused vaccines. China has a stranglehold on 80% of active substances. We have more bureaucracy and that is just going to kill off European industry, including the European pharmaceutical industry. And who's going to pay? It's. So these decisions are going to be terrible for us. And Mrs. von der Leyen's commission is the last body that should decide on our health, because the mistakes during the pandemic proved that our vigor.”
  Covid-19 vaccines procurement
• “Madam. President. Commissioner. High prices are impacted. First of all, by your wrong policy. Brussels is turning its back to farmers due to your ideology, which results in higher retail prices of food. At the same time, you open up the European markets to disloyal competition from abroad. So traditional family owned farms are bearing the cost of all of this. You are not allowing farmers to use fertilisers. You increase quality standards, but you do not put those standards on products from Mercosur or Ukraine. This is tantamount to destroying of jobs. So this is why we are here. We want to do away with your dictatorship, your caviar left allied with so-called right and so-called Christian democracy. You have to go away from the policy of so-called burning Earth. This will be enough. Really?”
  Import of agri-food products in the EU
• “The European Commission proposed an action plan to put an end to imports from Russia. This is a funny joke from von der Leyen, and this will continue to stream into Europe after this has entered into force. It will just be flagged differently and be more expensive because of longer transport. The Polish right wing. Together with the left Liberals in Germany, made us dependent on Russian gas. The political situation shows that we were right, and the commission's actions now are at least 20 years too late. The commission is lying to citizens. We cannot agree to that before the commission turns off the tap. We must be find out what we are to replace these raw materials with in Europe. Do we have renewable sources? We can see what happened in France with the blackout, which was caused by renewables. Europe is shutting down coal fired and nuclear power plants and making itself dependent on Russia. No coincidence.”
  EU-Russia relations (from March 2022)
• “Commissioner, just a supplementary question. How come? Do we always have problems with the disbursement in the case of countries where there are conservative governments in place?”
  Conditions to access EU budget
• “(14:50:06 – 14:51:50): Commissioner, you have spoken a lot about flexibility. You also said that we've also almost reached the limits of flexibility with this budget. But seeing that, recently, the European Commission said that interest on next generation EU will be at 5,000,000,000. Now you say 10,000,000,000. And, actually, the information that we've received by email recently, the total debt, for 2027 would be actually €15,000,000,000. I'm talking about the debt service costs. It's quite, a lot, and it's definitely much more than what we estimated several years ago. We know that economic situation, interest rates, inflation, that definitely drives the interest rates. This all comes into play. Recently, we were talking about the 90,000,000,000 of Ukraine support alone, and then you said that you don't even see a viability of a plan whereby Ukraine would fail to repay because the because Russia would fail to repay reparations. But if I look at what you do as European Commission on budget, I think you, you think in line with that too big to fall, principle. But I remember a situation in the bank banking industry back in 2008. They had the same rule and they failed. Don't you worry that it might get out of control that, crises, wars, etcetera might erupt that would lead to the failure to repay? And why such low flexibility?”
  Size of EU budget
• “Thank you. A citizens package rather a package against citizens. Another billion to the North Sea windmills, batteries, all to make a Polish miner or a Polish entrepreneur and a Polish family pays for the climate fantasies of Brussels. We want. We don't want green communism. We want cheap energy. Unfortunately, Poland is the main victim of this madness. We have a minister, a Ministry of Climate, but he prefers to save the planet rather than saving Polish companies and its citizens. We don't want to be an energy colony of Germany. We have our own technologies. We have coal. You've asked us to close our minds. But if we wouldn't have had our coal fired power plants last winter in Poland would have been deadly. For many people. With the choice of climate, ideology and welfare of citizens. We choose welfare of citizens. We choose energy security. Cheap electricity for citizens. We choose energy sovereignty and not Brussels. Thank you.”
  Fossil fuels
• “The first 100 days of the European Commission are the 100 days of the sad truth about Europe's position in the geopolitical and economic world. It is also 100 days of truth about the leadership of the EU, to which we owe our marginal position. Today's policies of the European Commission are a continuation of the policies of her infamous predecessors, who brought us the migration crisis, the economic crisis, the military crisis and the demographic crisis. You may resent those who told the King that he was naked, but that doesn't change the fact that they were right. You can cordon us off in fear of the truth we proclaim. But the truth will not change. The European Commission has shown that it is second to none in one area. That area is the creativity in creating unchanging slogans and programmes. The only positive effect of that is to make EU bureaucrats feel better. The current European Commission is the biggest threat to Europe and the best thing that could happen is its resignation. Thank you.”
  Von der Leyen
• “Thank you very much. The action plan for Steel and Metal is published by the Commission. Shows clearly enough the upcoming Armageddon of our falling industry. Back in 2018, European mills produced 65 million tons of steel. In 23, it was only 126. The potential of European steel mills is used up to 65% of capacity today. The Commission itself admits the situation is critical, but it, uh, goes into decarbonisation. The pinnacle of stupidity is going back to the technology that is has been withdrawn for a long time now, like electric furnaces. What this means is that companies will leave our continent. So Brussels sees what is going on and understands, but does not want to give up the policy of the green era. The Commission does not want to save the steel sector. It wants to save its image, but the consequences of losing jobs and industries will be put on the shoulders of member states.”
  Energy (green transition)
• “Commissioner, my question will be in Polish Commissioner, because most probably Poland will not be able to spend all the money that it should receive because of, uh, many issues. Also because the European Commission, uh, was blocking the disbursement of the funds. Uh, so can we count on, uh, prolongation of the period of disbursement? What are the rules?”
  Conditions to access EU budget
• “(14:44:02 – 14:46:37): Chair, commissioner. There is no doubt, and I think we would all agree that we are now facing major challenges as individual member states, as a continent as a whole, geopolitics, economic crises, individual problems related to the budgets and the budget of the EU. And case in point would be the draft amending budgets that keep on flowing our our way and actually make the whole picture more opaque. Maybe we should drop this practice and stay more consistent. When it comes to other sections, our pro our position is as follows. If on the table, we have a druggies report that was actually produced at the request of Ursula von der Leyen, clearly says that we don't we are not competitive in today's world, that we have tons of developmental problems, if I can put it that way, then we what we expect is courageous decisions and not maintaining status quo and floating on the surface. So when I hear that various new for instance, new posts will be frozen and no new people will be employed, well, this is not enough as an explanation. When we as MEPs vote on budgets for various institutions, and as you know very well, commissioner, there are dozens of them. What we expect is the following. We want the European Commission to be courageous to focus more on a real red tape or anti red tape policy and not only keep on freezing posts, but maybe look for places where, the number of posts could be really cut. I think many European countries and peoples of European countries think that European administration has grown to be too big. Obviously, the comparisons that you've made, for instance, with the, city of Paris or other examples that you gave. But if you look at the drug report and the proposals in the drug report, you will see that we won't achieve that, through anything else but real cuts in administration. Thank you.”
  Size of EU budget
• “(14:50:06 – 14:51:50): Commissioner, you have spoken a lot about flexibility. You also said that we've also almost reached the limits of flexibility with this budget. But seeing that, recently, the European Commission said that interest on next generation EU will be at 5,000,000,000. Now you say 10,000,000,000. And, actually, the information that we've received by email recently, the total debt, for 2027 would be actually €15,000,000,000. I'm talking about the debt service costs. It's quite, a lot, and it's definitely much more than what we estimated several years ago. We know that economic situation, interest rates, inflation, that definitely drives the interest rates. This all comes into play. Recently, we were talking about the 90,000,000,000 of Ukraine support alone, and then you said that you don't even see a viability of a plan whereby Ukraine would fail to repay because the because Russia would fail to repay reparations. But if I look at what you do as European Commission on budget, I think you, you think in line with that too big to fall, principle. But I remember a situation in the bank banking industry back in 2008. They had the same rule and they failed. Don't you worry that it might get out of control that, crises, wars, etcetera might erupt that would lead to the failure to repay? And why such low flexibility? .”
  Size of EU budget
• “Ladies and gentlemen, I'm looking at the proposal of the European Commission. Do you see any logic in it? First of all, we have a situation where European agriculture is in crisis. We have the lowest prices of agricultural products for which they are selling at the highest production, called fertilisers. Energy prices are highest and we have a competition let into a markets from Mercosur, from Ukraine, and in the future financial framework, there will be less funds for agriculture. You are moving the responsibility on the member States that in the future will be less money for farmers. So I believe this proposal is. Is not fair towards farmers, and I am very glad to see the position of the Court of Auditors who clearly criticise this proposal.”
  Agricultural trade: Ukraine imports
• “Ladies and gentlemen, I'm looking at the proposal of the European Commission. Do you see any logic in it? First of all, we have a situation where European agriculture is in crisis. We have the lowest prices of agricultural products for which they are selling at the highest production, called fertilisers. Energy prices are highest and we have a competition let into a markets from Mercosur, from Ukraine, and in the future financial framework, there will be less funds for agriculture. You are moving the responsibility on the member States that in the future will be less money for farmers. So I believe this proposal is. Is not fair towards farmers, and I am very glad to see the position of the Court of Auditors who clearly criticise this proposal.”
  Agricultural funding