 Thank you, President Sisi Kostas, honorable members, thank you for inviting me and I have to say indeed it's always a pleasure to be back to the court committee of the regions and to former colleagues and indeed I will never miss the time as a regional councillor but also as a commissioner for regional and urban policy and therefore indeed it's close to my heart everything which concerns regions and municipalities and everything which is related to it and therefore it's also an excellent opportunity for me now to discuss with you our proposal for the upcoming financial framework and in particular the recovery plan for Europe and I also take note and I very much appreciate your strong support and I also welcome your invitation to join you on the 14th of July in order to show determination and to make the necessary to put the necessary pressure on the national leaders indeed to find an agreement at the next European council time is of essence in general but in the particular situation we are in especially and therefore thanks a lot for all your support it's indeed an unprecedented situation none of us has ever faced it which has hit our economies and has taken thousands of lives in Europe only so we have to work hand in hand on as you rightly said a local regional national but also European level to support citizens enterprises regions and municipalities even the little villages as much as we can I fully appreciate that speaking here today I'm dealing directly with the asymmetrics this crisis has brought thankfully some of you will have not been impacted as badly as some of the unspeakable suffering in the worst affected areas similarly some of your regions will have a faster path to recovery than others one of my main objectives today is to mobilize your particular insight at exactly the regional level to optimize the way we implement our recovery plan so I will start by setting out how we intend to support the recovery in addition to the already existing crisis support you know there's several elements amounting to 540 millions and very important the relaxation of in particular structural fund regulations in order to provide a quick disbursement this year and already at the beginning of next year the commission proposed the emergency instrument next generation EU and also the reinforced multi-annual financial framework the emergency next generation EU or for all to get the 750 billion euro will boost the financial firepower of the european budget the funds will be raised through boring on the markets and will be then channeled through EU programs to underpin the immediate and fast acting measures needed to protect people and get the economy back on its feet so I need your help here and again thank you for your initiative on the 14 but also the many many individual actions all the colleagues will take in the next couple of weeks to to to make the necessary pressure on the national leaders because next generation you can only start operating once we have an agreement and the amended only sources decision has been nationally ratified so this is another aspect and I know many of you are also members of the respective national parliaments so we need I can only start boring even one one euro if I have the legally necessary approval by all our member states and in 23 of our member states at least 23 we need the ratification by the national parliaments so therefore please pay particular intention to have this done as quickly as possible and this means in the ideally in the fourth quarter of this year a reinforced core mff for 2021 till 2027 amounting to 1100 billion euro this is sort of the core budget it will help us give a helping hand to the regions in need to promote symmetric recovery and conversions across the union to support the single market step up cooperation in areas such as health and crisis management and equip the union with a long-term budget to drive the green and digital transitions and build a fairer and more resilient economy the funds raised on the market and the reinforced long-term budget will direct money will direct money to where the needs are along three pillars the first pillar is about recovery repair and emerge so in order to return stronger out from the crisis the centerpiece to support member states will be the new recovery and the resilience facility if I take together grounds and loans it should amount to around 560 billion euro this instrument will foster investments and reforms essential to a lasting recovery and in particular very important improve the resilience cohesion policy will play its essential role in supporting a balanced recovery through a new 55 billion euro so-called react you initiative hopefully the first 5 billion euro funds under this instrument should become already available this year member states will be able to use the funds in a flexible way making sure the flow to the regions that need is it is guaranteed in order to be quick and very helpful reactive provides additional cohesion funding taking into account the impact of the crisis on economic growth unemployment and the relative prosperity prosperity each member state can direct this to the regions and sectors most impacted by the crisis this money is on top of the cohesion allocations for the next seven years and complements long-term cohesion investments under the just transition fund 40 billion euro should go to the regions most affected by the transition overall additional cohesion funding reaches some 100 billion euro considering also that the up to 10 billion euro midterm adjustment of the 2021 2027 cohesion policy allocation as soon as regional socioeconomic data is available the bill at two is about the kick starting of the economy and of about more what we call strategic autonomy with our new solvency support instrument which finally should to be more than 30 billion euro will provide urgent support to the capital of sound companies but for those companies which are again sound which have performed well before the crisis but are now at risk due to the crisis just like with reactive part of the funds should become available already this year before the ratification of the own resources decision here again a strong push to member states is necessary because I sense there is some reluctance to to offer this already this year but our first direction was to provide liquidity but second in particular towards the end of the year many companies unfortunately will as a result of the liquidity crunch face a solvency crunch and a crunch and this has to be addressed probably and already this year that's why we need a decision and not only a decision but also the opportunity to provide already support this year beyond what I have just said we make our economy waterproof by threatening the european single market the new strategic investment facility for around 50 billion euro will enhance eos autonomy strategic autonomy we have painfully witnessed in the last month that we are heavily depending for instance in the pharmaceutical sector on the delivery on the supply of of medicine from outside europe this is something we have to correct we have to change and exactly for this purpose we will offer within the invest architecture a so-called fifth window to in particular finance what we call nowadays our strategic autonomy so finally the third pillar it's about learning for the future europe's key to success is to draw lessons from each crisis as we did it before for the banking sector i'm always referring to it because just after the financial crisis 2008 2009 we started to reform the banking sector may i say we forced them to capitalize better and this has created more resilience the representatives of the banking sector were not always happy about all the measures but today they are because today the banking sector is not an additional risk an additional burden quite the opposite it can indeed serve as an asset in in this crisis and it shows that if you are taking measures in due time you can indeed create the necessary resilience and what was possible achievable in one particular sector the banking sector can and should now be duplicated in different areas and therefore we should use the current challenge as an opportunity again to build resilience and this includes three dimensions the first is building up the capacities to respond to the crisis in a more coordinated effective efficient quick and therefore european way therefore the commission is proposing a new ambitious you for health program for more than nine billion euro as well as a reinforced civil protection mechanism around two billion euro second we will transcend horizon europe by another 13.5 billion euro to reinforce vital research in health resilience and the green and digital transition but it's also about investing in artificial intelligence quantum computing here in the next decade decisions for the rest of the century if you like will be taken and it depends if europe is a first mover or a first or second follower so this is also something which can be captured under the title under the headline strategic autonomy and finally one of the lessons we have learned is that we have to stand more than ever to our values by demonstrating solidarity with our global partners to fight the pandemic to work together for a sustainable development and to reflect growing humanitarian needs in the most vulnerable parts of the world and as the pandemic is a definition something which affects the whole world we have to provide for instance if available vaccines all around the globe in order also to safeguard ourselves and to help us to return to the so-called new normality and at least to have opportunities again to travel around the globe and to meet friends and to make businesses so but a very of course relevant question is how will the money for the recovery be raised and be repaid to make borrowing possible the commission will use the headroom which is the difference between the own resources ceiling of the long term budget on the one hand and the mff payment ceiling on the other so it's not difficult to list the options for mobilizing extra money either we ask the member states to contribute more or we generate new on resources and of course we will propose additional new on resources many member states actually everybody is in a very dire fiscal situation and therefore for an additional burden is not expectable and it's also not necessary because this new on resources should serve to finance the borrowing of today at a later stage and of course it will also in the future help to reduce the pressure on national budgets we have when we presented the revised mff proposal plus the next generation you presented some options one is the extension of the emission trading system another one is a carbon border adjustment mechanism a single market entrance fee based on operations of large enterprises i think something which is very justified because if you can operate in all the 27 member states on the same rule books on the same legislative basis without borders in huge majority of countries and they're becoming more and more with the same currency this is an advantage and if you are not exporting or if you only export in one or two markets you're not benefiting that much than a company which is benefiting from this single european market so a small fee is something which is justified and the same applies for digital tax in the current crisis huge international internet companies have made even additional profit and the small little shop owner across the corner who had to lock down his shop facing a serious economic and personal crisis and usually by the way being more tax than internet companies i think here again it's an act of fairness if if we introduce something which to a certain extent compensates a little bit the burden little shop owners company owners are facing so taking everything together these new own resources could more than fully finance the repayment of and the interest on the market finance raised under the european recovery instrument this would mean no extra burden for individual taxpayers a very important message all what we are aiming at is not leading to additional burden to the individual european taxpayers there will be of course and this is i think for good reasons also um demanded by some member states and accepted by everybody a clear link to the disbursements of this additional funding with the follow-up of the european semester recommendations improved resilience critically depends on more work on our competitiveness uh what could be your role first it's about the timing we have no time to lose to be operational on the 1st of january 2021 that's once again i'm grateful for your initiatives before the european council but again as i already said it's important further down the road not to lose engagement in order to to guarantee that the necessary uh decisions where where necessary are taken at the national level the political price i have to say if there is no agreement is higher than the costs of any recovery package uh because we would lose altogether credibility citizens would not understand why we are not able to take decisions the market would react negatively and all this is leading may i say to nowhere one has to be aware but i know i can rely on you and the understanding of regions and municipalities how important this is you are the ones who are closest to our citizens you know what are their expectations what are their hopes operable hopes the commission hopes that member states will therefore understandable and really do everything to reach an agreement at the european council in july before the summer break in order to enter into negotiations with the european parliament which should not forget how important it is to have an agreement with the european parliament european parliament has its own has its expectations its demands and therefore as soon as possible negotiations are necessary it's also about the bridge financing the front loading i have already mentioned in order to start disbursements already this year the new own resources decision could ideally be in place early next year enabling the commission to start pouring on the markets for the next generation you so again again i have to say i need your help to speed up this process the more public voices are heard in support of our proposal the more difficult it will be to delay its adoption i mean here really we should orchestrate a very decentralized push to each and everybody in order to achieve the goals the most important message to echo is that our proposal as a whole would ensure that every single member states net balance would improve what does it mean the net contribution and i stress the net contribution of each member state and here i'm talking about the so-called net payers will be in 2021 lower than in 2020 and the the so-called beneficiaries will receive in 2021 and even the the the further years more than in 2020 and only to give you so to say a flavor why this is correct i just presented last week the draft budget for 2021 and in 2021 the core mff based on a breakdown of this 1,000 400 euro a billion euro for seven years will be 167 billion euro but next generation you next year should be 211 billion because here we are talking about a division by four so it's obvious that in the next couple of years member states have to pay less compared to this year and therefore they should because they receive more back they receive more in return and therefore it's a contribution to each and member states in terms to fight the consequences of the crisis and according our proposal this will not backfire in in in future years because our idea is to have new own resources which are european ones which are dedicated to refinance the borrowing at the market everything limited to the four years because of course the repayment period will be longer but it will even in the future not affect the individual national budgets therefore i think it's a very convincing proposal we have made and i have to admit of course as you see the the the public debate especially support is needed in the so-called frugal countries but they are beyond the four ones some other like-minded ones i think everybody here knows about which countries i am talking and again this bottom-up pressure will be very much will be very important so with having said all this again thank you for this opportunity i think we all understand this matter of urgency we are already compared to the last period eight months behind because of the the current mff from 2014 in 2020 the council took the decision about the current budget in november 2012 and if you compare it to now the council should have taken the decision in november last year now we already in july and therefore but on top also to respond to the crisis we need now decisions in order to show our ability to act and not only to talk thank you very much