Vi närmar oss slutet på förhandlingarna om EU:s nya långtidsbudget. Det finns fortfarande stora problem med den ur ett piratperspektiv, men våra fyra EU-parlamentariker har ändå lyckats få med ett antal viktiga punkter för oss. – satsningar på forskning, utbildning och rättssäkerhet. På området digital transformation öronmärktes finansiering för fri och öppen mjukvara och att projekt som mottar stöd ska vara privatlivsvänliga.
“I am happy to say that two of the budget’s main issues have been addressed to a huge extent: the budget for research through Horizon Europe and for education through Erasmus+ has been increased. Europe that would not act upon these two areas would have no real future. Especially when we still need more decisive action on digitization and building up the European digital autonomy,”
Marcel Kolaja, vice ordförande för EU-parlamentet och EU-parlamentariker för det tjeckiska Piratpartiet
“The envelope for border protection and humanitarian aid was increased by two and a half billion EUR. This is a sort of a band aid for long-term problems with border management and the absence of a central, unified European approach regarding the common European border, but that is not a problem that can be solved by adding more money. At the same time, we should not be dazzled by the decent amount of funds invested into humanitarian aid: not only do the European funds constitute only a fraction of all spending in Europe, but this is also only humanitarian aid. For long term solutions, we need more development cooperation on the European level, and not only on budgetary issues, but also through clear political action.”
Markéta Gregorová, EU-parlamentariker för det tjeckiska Piratpartiet
“The most important part for me, and at the same time the most fragile part of the MFF deal (Multiannual financial framework – the EU’s long term budget for the years 2021–2027) is the newly strengthened public control, enacted through clear control rights assigned to European Parliament and the rule of law mechanisms. Now we finally have a clear link between funds and rule of law in the member states: and that has propelled PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary to threaten vetoing the MFF. If they do that, they will clearly show they care more about wrecking democratic institutions and fundamental rights than about moving forward together. I think they should be satisfied with the overblown Common Agricultural Policy, with its extremely poor conditionalities, that will still make it possible to send more than enough funds to agricultural oligarchs.
Mikuláš Peksa, EU-parlamentariker för det tjeckiska Piratpartiet
Another problem of this budgetary package is quite simple: it wants to work on the digital transition, but 8 billion euros for Digital Europe cannot fix our digitization alone. Using the digital tax for own resources may help smaller digital companies and start-ups compete with the giants, but that is only one aspect. At the same time we are heading towards a Europe of surveillance and encryption breaking and that goes entirely against the European ambition for a digital economy that serves citizens, even before we start the reasonably sized investments,”