Nigel Farage and next week

My favourite Member of the European Parliament, Nigel Farage, has been honoured by a special website: "Meerkats that look like Nigel Farage". I appreciate the creativity of the internet, when it concerns myself but even more when it concerns others.

On a more serious note, my next week is be packed with interesting meetings, first with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Both of us will speak at the UN Conference "Sustainable Energy for All" but we will also have a bilateral meeting to discuss global issues such as Rio 20+.

Wednesday, I will be in Strasbourg where I will speak at the European Parliament debate on the economic crisis in the Eurozone. I will highlight the importance of the Europe 2020 strategy as well as the necessity to haven EU budget through the next Multiannual Financial Framework that clearly prioritises growth. I have made proposals such as projects bonds for measures such as the Connecting Europe Facility, which need an appropriate financial backing. I expect that member states as well as the European Parliament to support our joint efforts in order to get the European Union out of the crisis again.

You can see that after the short holiday break, the next week will be discuss important questions of future development in the European Union and beyond. If I find the time, I will keep you up to date here on the blog and on Twitter with more details during the next days.

EU budget and 20 years of ECHO

Incredible how quickly the last days have passed. After some very good days in Italy this week I was busy with a lot work and preparations here in Brussels. Yesterday I had a working lunch with the Swiss President Widmer-Schlumpf, quite a difficult meeting I must admit because there are many issues to be solved to get our cooperation to a new level. In the afternoon I also met with President Salva Kiir Mayardit of the newly founded state South Sudan and Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Also in the afternoon, I spoke at the festivities of the 20th anniversary of DG ECHO, our Directorate General for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis response headed by Claus Sorensen, with Kristalina Georgieva as the responsible Commissioner in the College. Watch my speech from about minute 4:20:

Today we had the weekly meeting of the College in Brussels where among other things we discussed about the Commission proposal to ensure reciprocity when international bidders want to participate in EU-wide public procurement. In the afternoon I had meetings with the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mr Bakir Izetbegovic, as well as with Mr Igor Luksic, Prime Minister of Montenegro. Tomorrow morning at 9.30 I will be in the Hemicycle of the European Parliament in Brussels, together with the Presidents of the Parliament and the Council, to discuss the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the European budget for the time after 2013. Last week on Tuesday during the College meeting we already had a long debate about the last budget in this Financial Framework and we will make our Commission proposal for the 2013 budget on 25 April. It will however be crucial to think about the budget of the future, making the Union fit to get out of the crisis and to follow the road of the Europe 2020 strategy with the MFF 2014-2020. If we want to invest in the future of the European Union, we need a budget that allows to make the necessary investments, for example in energy and digital communication infrastructure under the Connection Europe Facility, and we should also consider that for these efforts the European Union needs more own resources to boost growth, make Europe safer and to make Europe count in the world. You can watch the speeches of the three presidencies and the following press conference on Europe by Satellite. It is a very important topic and I recommend everyone to listen! That is it for today from Brussels. Tomorrow evening I will be in Copenhagen and on Friday I will finally be back in Portugal. If I find the time, I will blog here again at the end of the week.

The new president of the European Parliament

Today, I am first going to meet with Bill Gates to talk about the future of development aid. Later I will come together with Martin Schulz who has been elected as the President of the European Parliament for the next two and a half years. It was a great pleasure to work with my good friend Jerzy Buzek during the last years, but I am confident that the cooperation between President Schulz and me will also be good and based on mutual understanding. In his opening speech he indicated that he intends to strengthen the position of the European Parliament. This is his role as long as this means that the Parliament does take into account the common responsibility we have to make good decisions for Europe's citizens. You can listen to our joint press conference at 13h45.

In Strasbourg yet again facing Nigel Farage

I was in the European Parliament in Strasbourg yesterday to discuss the conclusions of the last European Council and the Annual Growth Survey with the parliamentarians (I thank the European Parliament for the photo). During the debate, Mr Farage, in his usual exaggerated and predictable way, attacked European Council President van Rompuy and me:

You can see on video that Commissioner Rehn and I manage to ignore Mr Farage as much as possible. I have to admit he is hard to ignore. Mr Farage has all the rights to voice his opposition and I respect all opions, but his speech showed that while the European Commission, in cooperation with the European Council, the member states and the Parliament is working hard to restore confidence and to support stability and growth, some in Europe still think we can solve our common problems without a common European approach. I am convinced we can show that our approach is the better and more successful one!