Tamás DEUTSCH

Policy topics Tamás DEUTSCH is active on

What Tamás DEUTSCH has said (34)

• 2026-07-14 “(10:31:21 - 10:32:59): Based on what's been said so far, we really do have to compare things to the reality in Hungary. This government has done something unheard of in Europe, but changed the constitution with by changing 1 sentence. It's a retroactive change that targets 1 specific person. It undermines voters' rights by creating a political police force that cannot be countered. And the European Commission has in the past spoken of the rule of law in Hungary. And right now, the commission is being strangely silent, We're talking about a reform that threatens the rule of law in Hungary. It's high time that we put an end to this silence. Can these decisions be tolerated? These constitutional decisions, are they suitable for these sectors? Thank”
  Rule of law in Hungary
• “I am going to start with a quote. Our European strategy in the name of transatlantic alliance copied the pro war strategy of America. But President Trump, following his victory is not going to wait. He's going to be ready. Uh. As a peacemaker. I am sure that the in the case of a probable outcome of a Trump win, the financial, uh, relations between the US and EU are going to change when it comes to support to Ukraine. End of quote. These lines come from Mr. Viktor Orban a year and a half ago, following his peace mission, he wrote to the president of the European Council had European decision makers listened, then we could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives which were lost in the hell of war. And the EU would not have had to spend €200 billion in the war in Ukraine. So let's put things in place. Brussels is still wants to continue the war in Ukraine, and the pro-war craze has shifted a gear in Brussels. But Europeans want peace, and the pro-peace position of Hungary means that we do not support the idea of spending frozen Russian assets in this way. This would have an incredible outcome, and we will never agree to a common European spending. To more spending to Ukraine.”
  Russia-Ukraine conflict (10th term)
• “Thank you very much, chair. Dear colleagues. First of all. The draft report prepared by our chair is a decent job, but the group of the Patriots does not agree with the most important conclusions in this report. According to our position in 2023. The money that the European taxpayers paid. The European Commission spent it without accountability, without transparency, and with a significant risk of corruption. Therefore, the European Parliament is not in a position to give a discharge to to the European Commission. There are there are not simply just cosmetic issues. There are not just a tiny little problems. The basic principles of the operation of the European Commission should be using the money in a clean, transparent and accountable way and there are justified suspicions that this has not happened in the proper manner. The president of the European Commission is procuring vaccines to a value of €21.5 billion, with a simple text message. This should not be done in a text message. If a small company in any member state would just use €21.5 thousand of European grants without complying with the strict public procurement rules, there would be a procedure against that company. And currently, the European Commission is mobilising great forces in order to deny the provision of data to the authorities that are conducting a criminal procedure. They are simply not providing the documents. The text message, the the short text message that founded a procurement to the value of €21.5 billion. The European Commission is changing its own internal rules Retroactively, and they are trying to erase this serious scandal from the history of the European Commission.”
  Discharge of EU institutions and agencies
• “Chairman, I originally wanted to say something in panel two. If I can do so, I would be more than happy to speak now. What's your position? Very diplomatic answer. I accept that. Chairman. Colleagues. I would like to speak about two issues very briefly. First of all, I think that it is unacceptable the way Mr. Winter mentioned it as well, that in 2009 the Lisbon Treaty was accepted, and then the European Parliament. Also created legislation about the European Citizens Initiative. However, so far. We have only had examples of such where the European Commission did not accept to make Legislation or legislative proposals. And the European Commission is reasoning, saying that they don't really have the possibility to do so. Whereas they do create legislative proposals where they don't really have any powers on the basis of the European treaties. But when there is an interest from Brussels that the European Commission should create legislation, there is no problem. Whereas when this should be done on the basis of European citizens initiatives. They say they are saying that this is not possible to do so. So I would like to turn to the representatives of the European Commission to do whatever they have to on the basis of the European Citizens Initiative.”
  EU engagement with citizens
• “Thank you. Welcome. Dear commissioners. Dear colleagues. I. Strongly support all sorts of dialogues, especially constructive dialogues. And I also very strongly support constructive implementation, which means fast, speedy and efficient implementation of all the projects that are listed under the RFPs. If I remember correctly, Mr. Dombrovskis mentioned that there was practically mapping done about the projects that have already been completed. I would like to ask you to provide us with such a mapping exercise about the 27 member states, the 27 RFPs and a list. What are the projects that have been completed? What projects have not been completed? What are the projects that are ongoing? But what are the projects that have not even been started? Because I think this is what would give us a clear picture. The second question, I think we should just leave behind all these, um, gray zone, uh, situations where the commission doesn't tell us really clearly whether it intends to transform the MFF based on the ref, because there are hints made when we ask very clear questions, then the commission always says, well, we cannot provide you with an answer. So I would like to help you out with my number one question. Is there a possibility, a Possibility a professional possibility for the following. To include. Could. Could the Commission include it in its multiannual plan. A modification of the MFF based on the RRF? And if there is, then do you plan it for a detailed review?”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “Mr. Bosnyak. Ursula von der Leyen was standing right here and said that, uh. Despite of what was said about the rule of law conditions, the real reason they are not giving these funds to Hungary is that is because Hungary is not willing to let illegal migrants into Europe, and we refuse to give in to Gender ideology and we protect Hungarian children. Uh, Budapest actually has received EU funds. Just ask the mayor of Budapest. Everything. Every statements contrary to that are lie.”
  Rule of law in Hungary
• “Thank you very much, chair. Colleagues, I would also like to thank the Court of Auditors Is our expert and his colleagues for the special report. Very briefly, just four things I would like to say. Don't be afraid, please. Because of my numbers. First of all, I'm always scared when I can hear about solutions. Uh, when a political marketing dominates political actions. This has become a fashion at the European Commission. When it comes to small, medium sized or large scale programs. We are talking about a huge political, uh, action. For instance, CARE. And then we can see that the commission invests more efforts in the trendy, uh, names. Uh, then on the Program itself. Therefore, I think that the European Commission is not supposed to be involved in, uh, this. Now on CARE due to the war in, uh, the, uh, Ukraine, uh, region, there are a lot of migrants coming to European countries, and we can't neglect the fact, the fact that to Hungary, due to the war, more than 1,200,000 Ukrainians had to come, and everybody was welcome, and everybody was given support. Uh. And this CARE, uh, about the Ukrainian refugees is one of the biggest projects in Hungary, and this is surprising to say, when more than 1 million and 200,000 Ukrainian refugees come to Hungary. The European Commission, due to the fact that Hungary wants to stop illegal migrations, €200 million of fees have to be paid. We are punished, we welcome the refugees and we do whatever we have to. We care for the refugees who have to have to leave their home countries due to the war. So I think that it's very difficult, um, to, uh, Spend more money on this program.”
  Asylum & border control
• “Number three, I think that this evaluation from the Court of Auditors is a bit contradictory because saying that the effectiveness of the measures cannot be measured. I don't think that this is a positive conclusion. And last but not least, a strategic issue a bit more than the content of the special report. And our rapporteur also mentioned it. How can we find a good solution to meet the strategic objectives of the cohesion policy and to help all the regions that are lagging behind, but at the same time, uh, to help, uh, all the crisis situations. Let's mention Covid 19 or the refugees. Uh, or the environment issues. And on top of everything, the European Union. And I'm sorry about the worst that I'm going to use. Can use fresh money when it comes to crisis situations. €134 billion spent on the Ukrainian issues. And this is these are not amounts which were taken from other programs. When the refugees are supposed to be welcome in other countries. Uh, the commission is not going to take a decision, uh, Resulting in new measures, but tells the member states that from the money that you have anyway, you can use, uh, whatever you want on that. When you have to finance the war to help people due to the war in Ukraine, they have fresh money. But when we have to help the migrants coming or the refugees mainly from Ukraine, you have to use the money that you have anyway. I don't think that this is a good solution. Uh. I don't think that we have to use on different areas the money that is already available for various other purposes. Thank you.”
  EU cohesion/structural-fund architecture: consolidation vs ring-fenced separate funds · Cohesion and rural funding
• “And these might be agencies that are not being coordinated. This is the second reason. And the third issue is the consultancies. I'm going to speak a little bit sharper than my colleagues. They said, and I agree with them, that agencies were created so that the agency can support the work of the Commission and the director general. But the agencies supporting the Commission is being supported by consultancies. The next step would be that these consultancies would be helped by even more external consultants. This logic of the chain of assistance has to end somewhere. There is a Commission. They need assistance. That's why we have agencies. And if an agency cannot fulfill their function, then we need a consultancy. We should decide where we are going. So either we have permanent workers at an agency or we have smaller agencies and more consultants. I'm going to be very brief now because I'm already over time. Beyond the communication by Mr. Serafin, which included contracts to European NGOs from seven directors-general. So he sent us, sent us these contracts and provided us access to it. This is exactly the same thing as what we need for the agencies, because the agencies themselves provide funds to several NGOs in Europe. And we have a bad feeling that it might be justified to look at these contracts as well. So when agencies provide support to NGOs, then these contracts should be provided to us. Thank you.”
  Discharge of EU institutions and agencies
• “Thank you very much, dear colleagues. I would like to, uh, address, um, the, um, representatives in the Commission and the Court of Auditors and welcome them warmly. I have a couple of questions. The first question is with regards to the accession of Ukraine and, uh, the, uh. The aspects of that accession and then, uh, the, uh, negotiations and then thirdly, the issue of corruption and, uh, NGOs. So first of all, with regards to Ukraine, now, you know that the if you read the newspapers regularly, you know, uh, that the rights of the minorities are in a very bad situation, particularly the ethnic minorities. This situation was, uh. Well, that was the case, uh, before the war between Russia and Ukraine. This is not a new problem that just emerged in February 2020. This is, uh, an issue, um, that the Ukrainian administration, uh, has regularly, uh, rode roughshod over the rights of these minorities, uh, their collective rights, their individual rights. I think the European Union, uh, has been clear. They have a list of 17 points with regards, uh, and the rights of the minorities are very important. And it's clear what Ukraine, uh, has to do. Ukraine has not really made any progress in this area. There is a Hungarian minority in Ukraine and, uh, the rights of this minority have, uh, not been guaranteed. They are in a very bad situation. I would like to ask the commissioner in 2020, for you were not in office yet, but there is a legal continuity, I think, and a continuity in terms of the work of the Commission. So it doesn't really matter who was in office. So with regards to the accession process of the Ukraine, we got, uh, clear, tangible steps were taken by I the Commission to ensure that the rights of the minorities in Ukraine were safeguarded.”
  EU enlargement
• “Why is that? This report does not mention about. The case of the Director general for transport, which was also a very serious scandal. So this person received a very significant gifts nine times from an airline, uh, in the same country for which he is Commissioner Didier Reynders. Uh, also, his case is very relevant when there is a criminal procedure in a member state against someone. Then here in the European Parliament, the liberals, the socialists, the the communists and the green. Meps. Meps of the EPP. They treat it as a fact that there was serious abuse committed. The European Commission and a leader responsible for the rule of law. Was involved in a very serious corruption scandal and money laundering. And last but not least, as regards the funds to NGOs, let us not beat around the bush because the truth will come out sooner or later. The European Commission, through its DGS, is systematically supporting not NGOs, but political activist groups, and they are supporting not only civil society activities, but political activism and the activities that are carrying out is somehow always on the progressive, liberal and green side promoting those ideas. This is impossible. This is political corruption, and there isn't even a single reference to these issues in the report. These are severe cases that we are talking about. These were committed by the European Commission and these regard the use of European funds. So we should not grant this discharge without a clarifying procedure with the European Commission.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “We are in favor of a Europe of nations. Clearly, you are increasingly upset by the fact that we will not give in to your political blackmailing, and we will not, uh. To your tune. Rule of law. Procedure or not, we will not change. You want to change the government? You want your own people in government in Hungary. Uh, the Warsaw recipe is something you like, but it will not work in Hungary. Well, you will see what results it will bring in Poland. But I'm telling you now. The people, Hungarian people, the majority of Hungarian people will never vote in favor of somebody who is against his own country. And last but not least, not many people tell you in into your face, but your institutional lies are becoming very boring. Sometimes so-called NGO experts who are in fact activists or you themselves, uh. You have called us anti-Semitic, corrupt, anti European, whatever you will. And now you are simply, um, telling lies about, uh, infringements of rule of law in Hungary. This is your European Union. Ever since the Tavares report, all the way to this pamphlet that we have in front of us, it's just a pack of lies. Truth can only be what really corresponds to reality, and very few such statements can be found in your report. So whatever you are doing is simply laughable and also very negative. This is what the rule of law procedure is about.”
  Rule of law in Hungary
• “European citizens want to stop mass migration. The protection of borders. So that we stop a million illegal migrants from coming to Europe. Europeans don't want illegal migrants to murder. To have terrorists with migrant background slaughter innocent people. People want a safe Europe again. And then the European Commission. What does it do? It wants to speed up the catastrophic migration pact. Impact Europeans. Europeans want peace. The Ukraine strategy has been a disaster. The sanctions policy means that energy prices have skyrocketed. And now the European Commission, after all the billions spent, is it's ready to finance the Ukraine war with any amount needed. Brussels sent a war message which is deep green to farmers and destroyed the farming sector. And now the Commission wants more Green Deal and to demolish the well-functioning financing system for the farms. People have had enough. The world has changed and Brussels needs change as well.”
  Asylum & border control
• “So these are questions that pertain to the rule of law. Um, now these, uh, negotiations, uh, we, uh, it seems only Daniel Freund has the information. There seem to be negotiations in the USA. Uh, for example, with regards to the situation in Hungary and the USA's support in Hungary. There's no authority, uh, for this from the European Parliament to have these types of discussions or negotiations. So I would like to know No, I'm asking the commission. Did Mr. Freund have any kind of authorization to carry out these negotiations in the US, or does he just think he can do whatever he wants when it comes to partner countries and third countries? And my third question is directed to the European Court of Auditors with regards to 2024. There was a big scandal. It seems that Mr. Timmermans was competent at the time that there was also another DG in question. And it seems that there were, there was, um, support for NGOs that wasn't done through the proper channels. Now I've come across different NGOs, uh, through my career, uh, civil society organizations. That's always been important to me. Uh, I'm not talking about, uh, media, uh, who want to, uh, have undue influence, but I think that this particular practice by the commission, uh, we need to, uh, which has now been brought to light. There are, um. Political groups that have been supported in an institutional way. So I'd ask that question to the European Court of Auditors and to the Commission when you've carried out checks with regards to 2024. Were there any indications. With regards to this are support for NGOs that carried out political activities. So political support for NGOs was that provided. And perhaps you could give us a detailed, uh uh, including dates.”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions
• “(11:06:14 – 11:09:40): Thank you, Mister Chair. Of course, we welcome the work of our 3 co-reporters. And if you allow me, I would go point by point and set out the position of our political group. The Patriot Group, right from the beginning, was supporting the previous idea. We think that professionally, this single fund is unfounded. The different funds have become so different over the decades, and this is now an artificial step to try to mold them into one. And under all this, under the slogan of development, and this is actually no simplification. This means more bureaucracy and more complexities. It's not by chance that in the treaties, regional policy, cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy is set out as a separate objective. That's my first remark. Second, merging cohesion policy with other policies and managing it together with others, we don't find a good idea. We refuse it categorically because we need long-term planning and strategic steps. So we also refuse that cohesion policy should be transformed following the example of RRF. We already have experience that shows that this means Parliament will be completely vulnerable to the Commission. Then, forcing CAP into the single fund is also something that we are against. The two pillars and the doing away with strategic planning within the CAP and also the new payment mechanism, we disagree with. Then number 5, there are horizontal conditions. We think that these are unacceptable and it is really boring to keep listening to, yes, rule of law conditionalities and so on and so on. It is boring. The European Commission looks at farmers and municipalities as if they were partners who are ready to cheat the rules. We understand the Commission's idea behind all this. They want full political influence and absolute powers. And last but not least, what is the real problem? That's the finances. This single fund and the new structure covers the real problem. The real problem is the very, very austere cuts. 20% of cuts, for example, in the CAP. So this, the austerity and the single fund would refuse flatly.”
  Cohesion and rural funding · EU cohesion/structural-fund architecture: consolidation vs ring-fenced separate funds
• “So incredible levels of bureaucracy. And the chair has to pay attention to us participating in this training, because otherwise we cannot be assigned the report. From now on, whether I'm talking to new employees in my office or somewhere else, there is always water and the glass just to comply with these regulations. Secondly, we should make calculations. On how many hours our employees that we hired with European taxpayer money, not in order to help us, but to comply with the Parliament regulation. How much time did they spend preparing the documents that we then sign? This is a vicious cycle. These are employees paid with European taxpayer money, and they spent several hours of work by using these 300 applications and to fill out certain forms for us. My question in regards to digitalisation, this was mentioned here. This was already discussed at the previous follow up meeting of the discharge, but this was not answered. Why is the Central Register the only place in the European Parliament where the signature can be done? There is no opportunity to do this anywhere else, so we would like to decrease red tape. But every single group meeting and committee meeting we use paper based signatures. And obviously then these signatures become digitized afterwards. This is supposed to be user friendly and this is supposed to cut red tape.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “We hear a lot about this new framework, how flexible and efficient and easy to use and ambitious and so on. It's just a load of blah, blah, blah. It's it's it's a delusion. The bureaucrats in Brussels have been working on a budget for war. What Brussels wants is to spend money on Ukraine, and we're talking about 25% of the budget. And at the same time, appropriations have been earmarked. Of course, these have to be paid back. Uh, so another 25%. And then again, we've got further reductions in costs, uh, cutting the agricultural, uh, funds and cohesion. And then new taxes are coming from Brussels. We've got a centralised system to be introduced. And at the same time, um, there'll be some political pressure. And everything that is being set up is against the citizens and unacceptable.”
  Size of EU budget
• “(14:19:25 – 14:22:37): you, chair. Mister commissioner, dear colleagues, the draft budget for 2027, we have heard the main figures from the presentation of the commissioner. We need to analyze these proposals in-depth and in detail. I can only share my 1st response with you. Of course, you are in a easier situation, mister Seraphin, than a year ago when you were presenting the MFF proposal. But while you were doing your presentation, the president of the commission, was holding a press conference, and what we heard from her and what we heard from you were not always completely in sync. She's not making life more difficult for you this year by contradicting you in certain details. So 3 short remarks. 1st of all, we Patriots believe that unfortunately, the practice continues whereby the EU's budget is nothing more than drifting along, and we're always hoping for some change 2, 3 years down the road. So we have the problems now, and you are proposing solutions in 3 years' time. So the MFF is going to solve our current problems. If not, the RRF is going to solve our problems. If the 2 of them together are are not going to solve our problems, then then the midterm review is going to solve our problems. Then it's the new MFF which is going to solve our problems. We should come to a point where we are addressing the problems, the problems that everyone everyone is indicating to you. I know you're in an uncomfortable situation, mister commissioner. You're talking about your the limited margin. But limited margin or not, the problems are not going to solve themselves. We shouldn't be kicking the can down the road all the time by pushing all these the solution of all these problems to 3 years from now. Secondly, small margins don't make it possible to finance the the migration problem, to finance Ukraine and to find NGOs by billions when regional development and farm funding needs to be increased heavily. And thirdly, we cannot see how you are going to find the money to come up, with the funding that is now going to be open to Hungary, which has been withheld due to political reasons.”
  Size of EU budget
• “Dear colleague, I would like to respectfully signal something. Everybody should first put his or her own house in order. It is unacceptable that you are speaking about protecting sovereignty here in the European Parliament. And at the same time, for more than a decade, you are stepping on Hungarian sovereignty with your feet. You are illegally attacking the sovereignty of Hungarians continuously. You are continuously politically blackmailing my homeland. You are using political pressure. This is unacceptable.”
  Rule of law in Hungary
• “Dear colleague. The Patriot group and the Hungarian national delegation within the Patriot group ever since February 2022 has very has been very determined in. Supporting Ukraine's right to defend itself. And we are we Hungarians have provided the biggest aid. We have received more than 1 million Refugees. So please do not try to teach me lessons on the help that should be provided to Ukraine.”
  Russia-Ukraine conflict (10th term)
• “Thank you very much, chair. Colleagues. Let me welcome the presidency of the Council at our meeting. I have two questions. The first one concerns the fact that. Looking at, uh, the last five years and the implementation of the budget, uh, we have to face the same phenomenon. First of all, um, when it comes to the implementation of the budget, the priority acts, uh, are at, uh, institutions at the European Union. And when it comes to the shared management, uh, the authorities at the member states can make decisions concerning less than 50%. Number two. During the last years, the worst corruption scandals could be seen at the institutions of the European Union. Now, um, looking at the Council, the institution consists of the representatives of the various governments of the member states. Now, the Council should look at the fact that when it comes to the implementation of the budget of the European Union. You are only looking at the member States authorities when it comes to the implementation. Not really at the Commission. Never at the Parliament. However. Most of the scandals Us come from here. Now, how can we come back to a situation in which accountability and control can be done at the institutions as well, not only at the member states? My second question concerns the following. Uh, a scandal. Which came to light, uh, about billions of euros from the Commission, which was spent on the financing of ideological activities. Therefore, these monies went to NGOs. Now, what is the council planning to do about that? Because we are talking about, uh, amounts, uh, huge amounts. Uh, and you can't turn a blind eye on that, uh, because these amounts were not spent on, uh, development projects or other union projects. These NGOs were sent money for ideological purposes. And we are not only talking about Mr. Timmermans, but also about Commissioner Serafin, who. Gave contracts, uh, to, uh, people, uh, who were not supposed to get them. And this shows that institutional ideological financing was What's done? What's the council's opinion about that?”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “We need a budget for peace. Full stop. And the European Commission and the European Parliament has a majority in favor of war. And that is reflected in this draft proposal for the 2026 budget. Those in favor of war have already spent €180 billion. That's been spent on the war in Ukraine and the Tisa party in Hungary. The opposition supports this position, but the majority of EU citizens and Hungarians want peace. They don't want soldiers or money to be invested in this war. And these war plans of Brussels have to be brought to a stop. And we also reject illegal migration. Whatever rosy picture you sort of paint of it, the migration pact has failed. Yet that policy is being pursued. Uh, migrants are being courted. And that has led to a rise in anti-Semitism in the EU and the European Commission And in 2026, one wants to spend more billions on pseudo NGOs, liberal media and corruption in Brussels. And there is a political oppression from Brussels. Hungarian students can no longer participate in the Erasmus program, but the Hungarian government has created a different program. But the Tisa party wants to forbid this.”
  Russia-Ukraine conflict (10th term)
• “The EU must respect the rich cultural and linguistic diversity. It should ensure the survival of the European cultural inheritance, and that cannot be achieved without caring for national autochthonous minorities. And as Mr. Ishak has also mentioned, there are demographic problems. There are problems relating to assimilation, which leads to a reduction in the number of these autochthonous national minorities, the members of these autochthonous national minorities. So I really welcome this European citizens initiatives. And I do trust that we do not only hear nice words from the European Commission, but we will see them act as well. I have two questions. First, the representatives of the European Commission. If they are here, I would like to ask them whether there are any processes. That check the dysfunctional use of EU funds and filter them out. If these are related to to conscious decisions by states to disfavour to treat this favourably national minorities. And I have another question. Could you please. Mr. Ishak, could you illustrate how the number of the members of national minorities keeps dwindling. For instance, in Transylvania, in Scotland, autochthonous ethnic Hungarians has been continuously decreasing since 1992 to date. So please illustrate that. Dear colleagues, I sincerely hope that this is going to be a successful European citizens initiatives and we will not only hear nice words, but we will see concrete action from the European Commission. **Dragoș Benea (REGI Chair): Thank you, Mrs. Baldauf from USA.”
  EU and national cultural identities
• “Thank you for the floor, chair. Dear colleagues. The so-called rule of law procedure, uh, has been in force for five years. And on the basis of our experience, I can say that We should really talk about what's important. Unlike the core operators have said, whatever you do, we Hungarians do not want to live like you do. We do not accept your moral superiority and your lessons and teachings because the European Union, dear colleagues, is not a command driven system. The European Union is not a melting pot of nations. The EU cannot work in a way where you make use your so-called prerogative to dictate to us. Through rule of law, procedures dictate to us Hungarians how we should live. We Hungarians reject all of this. We Cannot accept any attacks on our sovereignty and liberty. You must accept. You have no other option. We are not, uh. We will not be ruled by Brussels or by Germany. We are a free nation. We have fought hard for our liberty. We will not give it up. Hungary is a Christian state with a history of a thousand years. We have our own traditions which are therefore also European traditions and values of. Equal at least equal value as those of other European nations. We of course respect other European countries and nations, but we accept the same in return. We can be a loyal, uh, partners of European institutions, but to double measures. We reject your double standards. And we accept. We expect respect from all of you.”
  Rule of law in Hungary
• “Thank you very much. Thank you, chairman. And Miss Andrea Kayani as well. Let's look at the facts. First of all, the report from the ECA states that between 2021 and 2023, €7.4 billion worth of grants were given to the NGOs by the Commission. But the situation is even more serious because between 2019 and 2024. So if we look at a broader period, the amount of support given was not 7.4 billion. No, it's €17 billion. And I can state here, based on facts here in the committee, that this is the result of an official data request that we sent, request that we sent to the commission, and the commission provided that response to our data request. And they also highlighted the contracts that were signed with NGOs between 2019 and 2024. As I say, it was €17 billion. That's the amount we're talking about. Now, the second thing about facts, the report of the ECA. Highlights an extraordinarily serious problem, and that is that in reality, in everyday, their everyday work. Organizations that work as NGOs are being supported but without transparency. And these are these are claims supported by the the Eca's report. But what's even more serious and several colleagues have highlighted this, is the fact that that pseudo NGOs are being supported. They lie. These organizations say that they're NGOs, but really they're groups of political activists. They carry out party political activities, but they don't operate as parties because. There because party political parties are governed by much stricter rules in all member states. Therefore, they lie and they say that they are civil society organizations. But no, they are political activists, just like political parties are. They then influence. That's their aim, just like political parties. And they do this in the commission.”
  Regulation of NGOs in Europe
• “Based on the third fact, an obvious fact that there have been serious concerns about too slow implementation and very high administrative burdens. So I think we need to set this out too, in the draft report. Our professional point of view is the following. Slow implementation is the result of the mechanism that is inherent in the RRF. So practically the problem was with the construction of the RRF and not the implementation. So we think that the deadline of 2026 should be postponed. And this is a justified request. Then the resources that are available by or within the next generation EU program, um, need to be very carefully managed. Keeping in mind the costs of repayment. If we don't do this, it's a big mistake. And then number five, speaking about milestones, saying that they are positive milestones, that they are positive. This doesn't reflect facts. I think the European Commission used milestones as a tool of pressure on member states. And then last but not least, the European Parliament went over its powers as laid out in the treaties, and it tried to intervene in member states affairs.”
  Conditions to access EU budget
• “Dear colleagues, I would like to welcome Mr. Isaac and Mr. Darwish. It is wonderful that they are here with us. And I would also like to welcome the representatives of the RMDs party from Romania. One of our colleagues cannot be here, but the rest of them are very welcome. I have two remarks and two questions. First, the European Union, day after day, behaves as if it was a champion of the protection of minorities. We keep hearing the EU bragging about how important it is to respect and care for illegal migrants as minorities, how important LGBTQ minority is, how important it is to take care of the culture of different minorities. Multicultural city is very important. So caring for minorities is very important. But it's like a net and some minorities always fall out of this net. And these are the autochthonous national minorities. We hear very beautiful words about how important and nice it would be to deal with autochthonous national minorities. But when it comes to practical decisions, for instance, when legal acts should be adopted, when EU funds should be used in a way that it really benefits these minorities, it does never happen. Well, what's the problem? What's the reason for that? Maybe the problem is the definition. The expression national maybe sounds bad for the European Parliament members. National minorities. Well, that sounds threatening. Um, but while at the same time caring for a national autochthonous minorities is a value and an obligation set down in the founding treaties of the European Union.”
  EU policy on integration and ethnic, racial and religious discrimination
• “Hungary. The Hungarian government, the government of Viktor Orban since 2015 has applied a technical border fence. You and the European Commission have been attacking us continuously. This border fence has resulted in stopping a million illegal migrants from entering. We would have had more 1 million migrants. Without that. We have arrested 2000 people smugglers and we expelled them from the European Union. I think we did well.”
  Asylum & border control
• “And thank you. Well, you can put your head in the sand, but the situation is clear. The Ukraine strategy conducted by Brussels has failed. You become fanatic. And all, the crazier you force the doctrine of war on us and you finance the killings in Ukraine by billions. You do everything here in the European Parliament to stop the creation of peace in Ukraine. Already by now, you have poured €200 billion into financing the war and the killings, the massacres in Ukraine. And you have already decided to continue this, to add a further €32 billion, and you are celebrating yourself, that you will add a further €90 billion to this war spending another loan. But we would need that money here within the European Union. And you in this first Past debate enthusiastically spoke about international rules based order, and you have proved to be very sensitive towards sovereignty. Well, then, let's just go back to the everyday operation of the European Union and implementing sovereignty. Stop attacking member States sovereignty. Stop attacking Hungary's sovereignty. Stop immediately to blackmail member states with fines. Stop immediately. For example, punishing Hungarian university students by not letting them participate in Erasmus.”
  Russia-Ukraine conflict (10th term)
• “(14:19:25 – 14:22:37): you, chair. Mister commissioner, dear colleagues, the draft budget for 2027, we have heard the main figures from the presentation of the commissioner. We need to analyze these proposals in-depth and in detail. I can only share my 1st response with you. Of course, you are in a easier situation, mister Seraphin, than a year ago when you were presenting the MFF proposal. But while you were doing your presentation, the president of the commission, was holding a press conference, and what we heard from her and what we heard from you were not always completely in sync. She's not making life more difficult for you this year by contradicting you in certain details. So 3 short remarks. 1st of all, we Patriots believe that unfortunately, the practice continues whereby the EU's budget is nothing more than drifting along, and we're always hoping for some change 2, 3 years down the road. So we have the problems now, and you are proposing solutions in 3 years' time. So the MFF is going to solve our current problems. If not, the RRF is going to solve our problems. If the 2 of them together are are not going to solve our problems, then then the midterm review is going to solve our problems. Then it's the new MFF which is going to solve our problems. We should come to a point where we are addressing the problems, the problems that everyone everyone is indicating to you. I know you're in an uncomfortable situation, mister commissioner. You're talking about your the limited margin. But limited margin or not, the problems are not going to solve themselves. We shouldn't be kicking the can down the road all the time by pushing all these the solution of all these problems to 3 years from now. Secondly, small margins don't make it possible to finance the the migration problem, to finance Ukraine and to find NGOs by billions when regional development and farm funding needs to be increased heavily. And thirdly, we cannot see how you are going to find the money to come up, with the funding that is now going to be open to Hungary, which has been withheld due to political reasons.”
  Size of EU budget
• “Thank you very much, chair. Dear colleagues. I have two comments and possibly a question. First of all, I would like to clarify something. I do not have any intention to offend anyone or to make this personal. So that's not why I'm saying this, but it is more than frustrating. After being an MEP for more than one and a half decades and to keep hearing that. Amazing bureaucrats are making immense efforts to decrease bureaucracy. And then we always conclude that the bureaucracy is growing despite all our efforts to decrease it. Maybe we should try this backwards. Maybe we should aim at increasing red tape, and maybe this would lead to red tape actually lessening. So the situation is that with my colleague Hohlmeier, I wholeheartedly agree with her. Everyone will have a chance to speak. So. According to my evaluation. We should call the politely named Qatar gate the Kiley case. Let's not go into this further, but these measures just increased red tape. But there are not a single new table or declaration, or any document that was aimed to increase transparency did not actually help us in order to reveal any sort of abuse, because nothing like that happened. We have to fill a lot of forms, or maybe digitally, electronically. But I question the efficiency of all this. And I think it's worth mentioning that I had the honor to participate within the framework of the new measures. I participated in the mandatory training. 700 MEPs were lectured for hours in order to decrease corruption that if an MEP wants to hire someone for their office, this has to be through a job ad, through a real competition. And if we invite the applicants, then there should be water in the waiting room before the interview. I'm not even joking. So we were informed, as grown up ladies and gentlemen, that in order to fight corruption in the European Parliament, the most important thing is that during the selection of colleagues when we are interviewing them, there should be water, paper and pencils. This process took 3.5 hours and this was what they talked about. This took 3.5 hours.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• “Thank you very much, chair. Dear colleagues. I would like to join the colleagues who spoke before me. This report is. This draft report is a good starting point for the work of our committee. And just like the others, I trust that there will be a fruitful cooperation between the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs. We all mentioned the one thing. So I would also like to join the others in saying that that this is the first year. When the reports on more than 50 agencies are not recorded in more than 50 different reports. But in one big report, I would like to immediately add that our rapporteur is very unlucky. Because in this mandate, among his indicators, he is not going to be the rapporteur for 50 different reports, but only one. But I think this will not affect the rapporteurs dedication to the topic. Since only one report is being made, we could call this horizontal or we could. Call this a more grounded analysis of all the agencies. I would like to mention three such overarching issues. First of all, my colleague from the EPP already touched upon this. I would like to highlight this even further. So this is a question, a problem that I would like to raise with emphasis right now in the world of the European Commission. Currently. There are 51,000 public servants in the European Union. 51,000. And among these, 51,000. There are 13,000 who work at the more than 50 agencies. And when we made reports for each agency.”
  Discharge of EU institutions and agencies
• “They do this via member states governments in several member states, and then they receive support because if they were to say what they actually were, party political activists, they wouldn't be entitled to that support. So in reality, we're talking about organizations that are pseudo NGOs, but they are actually carrying out political activities, and they also lobby and yes. And the scandal around Mr. Timmermans shows this. The European Commission is supporting supported lobbying activities in order to influence the work. And then people, you know, cry crocodile tears here and the left wing and the liberal parties and they talk about the fact that there are attacks on NGOs. But if we want to talk about attacks. The lynch atmosphere, you could almost say, is being created by these pseudo NGOs and just using the same words that you do. It's interesting that it's the, um, that the far right is being attacked here. There's also an extreme on the left as well. It's not just about the right. And I experienced that in my own country. No, this is almost this atmosphere of of lynching. And they attack people in their private lives because they do not agree with the the in the opinions that are accepted on the left and in the center. So we want to talk about attacks, and the worst attacks are actually being carried out by these pseudo NGOs, and they are being supported by the European Commission. This is a complete violation of the fundamental values of the European Union. So if we want to talk about attacks, and I think you should be focusing on that, the report is excellent, but I think that the conclusions drawn by the left and the liberals here are wrong. Thank you.”
  Regulation of NGOs in Europe
• “Then our fellow MEPs, when they were voting on this, they were very surprised to see that there might be three or 5 or 4 of agencies that have almost the exact same name. This obviously means that there is a huge amount of redundancy and red tape, and there is too much bureaucracy. If we do not take the opportunity to look at the issue. I do not want to use the word radical. As an MEP of PFI, because somebody would label my speech political. So we should look at a deep reform of these agencies. If we don't do that, I think we are making a serious mistake. So I think we need a deep organizational restructuring of the agencies. Secondly, because the president of the Commission spoke on at least two major occasions It's about the years in front of us. And an idea for the Multiannual Financial framework and the deep structural reforms that are going to be attached to it. Ursula von der Leyen said that because during the last 3 or 4 Commission mandates was created in a way that a Commissioner could create some legacy for himself or herself by creating a new program within the budget. So that's why we had more and more member states. We had more and more Commissioners, and more and more autonomous programs showed up in the EU budget, and it made the whole budget entirely confusing. So the European Commission wants to change that. Let's see under the next agenda item how they're going to do this. The other reason stems from the operation of the European Commission itself. There are several Commissioners who wanted to ensure the activity of their own position as Commissioner after their mandate, by creating an agency for it.”
  Discharge of EU institutions and agencies