9 Amendments of Martin HOJSÍK related to 2022/0212(BUD)
Amendment 8 #
2. Welcomes the Commission REPowerEU Plan to accelerate the green transition and to increase the Union’s energy independence; highlights that accelerating the implementation of the European Green Deal will reduce the Union dependency from third countries; stresses, in this context, that Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union commits the Union to pursue a high level of protection of the environment and to improve the quality thereof, inter alia by application of the precautionary principle and of principles stipulating that preventive action should be taken, that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay; believes, furthermore, that access to justice must be ensured at all times by the Commission and Member States during the implementation of the Plan;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Reminds the importance of achieving climate and biodiversity mainstreaming targets in the Union budget and the European Union Recovery Instrument expenditures; in this regard insists on the need to track climate and biodiversity-related expenditure and welcomes the biodiversity tracking methodology upgraded by the Commission in view of the Union budget 2023; calls on the Commission to address the conclusions of the European Court of Auditors regarding overstated climate spending1 and biodiversity spending1a; calls on Member States to ensure the integration of biodiversity in partnership agreements and operational programmes and to increase their efforts to reach the Multiannual Financial Framework biodiversity spending target of at least 10% as soon as possible; welcomes the final report Biodiversity Financing and Tracking1b and calls on the Commission and Member States to implement its recommendations swiftly; _________________ 1 Special report of the European Court of Auditors: Climate spending in the 2014- 2020 EU budget 1a Special report of the European Court of Auditors: Biodiversity on farmland: CAP contribution has not halted the decline 1b European Commission, Directorate- General for Environment, Nesbit, M., Whiteoak, K., Underwood, E., et al., Biodiversity financing and tracking: final report, 2022
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Recalls the need to assign sufficient human and financial resources for the implementation of the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, of the Farm to Fork Strategy, ofthe Soil Strategy, the EU Pollinators Initiative, the Forest Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, Chemical Strategy for Sustainability and of a Zero-pollution Action Plan in the 2023 Union budget; in this line, callsstrongly deplores that the Commission systematically fails to address the lasting problem of understaffing in DG Environment and has not ensured any meaningful increase in human resources; in this line, calls on the Commission to promptly secure an adequate level of staff for the directorates which need to ensure full implementation of these strategies; remains concerned about the fact that the staffing level of the Commission’s DG Environment has been significantly reduced during last few years and that despite the workload stemming from the EU Green Deal agenda, it represents only 1.4% of all Commission staff; believes that by the absence of commitment to address this problem the Commission puts at risk the implementation and enforcement of EU policies and harms the health of officials in DG Environment; calls, furthermore, to increase the budgetary support for the new LIFE programme and the Just Transition Fund and all other programmes that support and protect nature conservation;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Considers that the Union budget, on account of its size, structure and rules, has a very limited capacity to respond appropriately in 2023 to the challenges facing the Union or to adequately finance and execute new shared Union policy ambitions or initiatives announced in the Commission’s President’s 2022 State of the Union address, including measures related to climate and biodiversity crises; recalls in particular that the Heads of State or Government have described the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine as a ‘tectonic shift in European history’ and that the Commission has stated that the ‘unforeseen needs created by war in Europe are well beyond the means available in the current multiannual financial framework’, necessitating new financing sources; is of the view that this is a further demonstration of the urgent need to revise the MFF, including to make it more flexible, raise the ceilings where necessary to reflect emerging needs and new priorities and to address the problems generated by including the European Union Recovery Instrument (EURI) financing costs in Heading 2b;
Amendment 46 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Recalls that in order to properly comply with their tasks the Union agencies under the remit of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (EEA2 , ECHA3 , EMA4 , ECDC5 and EFSA6 ) must be adequately funded and staffed; deplores the budgetary reduction for ECDC and EMA; stresses that the deterioration of the staff levels of the agencies could jeopardise, among others, the achievement of the European Green Deal or the successful management of public health riskprevention and management of environmental and public health risks; stresses that the agencies should not be in a situation that forces them to establish negative priorities; underlines that assignment of new tasks to the agencies should be accompanied by additional and adequate resources; _________________ 2 European Environment Agency. 3 European Chemicals Agency. 4 European Medicines Agency. 5 European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. 6 European Food Safety Authority.
Amendment 70 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Recalls that the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is key to spurring investment in the development of high performance and sustainable trans- European networks; stresses that CEF must plays a crucial role in decarbonising the Union economy by supporting alternative fuel infrastructure and renewable energy, thereby accelerating the green transition and increasing the Union’s energy independence, and promotes interconnectivity across the Union territory, including with the Iberian peninsula; underlines that Russia's unprecedented and unprovoked military attack against Ukraine calls for urgent support to transport infrastructure in and towards Ukraine (“solidarity lanes”), to enable the transport of critical goods in both directions; proposes, therefore, to increase the funding of the Transport and Energy strands of CEF by a total amount of EUR 90 million in commitment appropriations above the level of the DB;
Amendment 111 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Reiterates the importance of the LIFE programme in supporting climate action and environmental protection and necessity of general coherence of Union´s annual spending with the IPCC and IPBES findings; calls for the level of budgetary support for LIFE to be increased across the various programme strands; highlights that any annual reinforcement for the LIFE programme will imply progress towards the mainstreaming targets and ambitions in the areas of climate and biodiversity; considers the present circumstances to justify a particular emphasis on the article covering the Clean Energy Transition;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Stresses the need to significantly increase the budget of the European Environment Agency to provide sufficient financial and staff resources to enable full implementation of the European Green Deal and its related policies; remains highly concerned about the implementation of specifically the EU Biodiversity Strategy, EU Pollinators Initiative, EU Soil Strategy and EU Forest Strategy and enforcement of Green Deal related legislation due to existing insufficient capacities of the Commission; believes that the Commission should at all costs avoid putting at risk the implementation and enforcement of environmental policies and legislation, which are clearly demanded by Union´s citizens;
Amendment 158 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 52
Paragraph 52
52. Emphasises the importance of ensuring that the Commission has sufficient staff to fulfil its tasks, including those relating to new initiatives; highlights in that context the impact of the legislative proposals under the EU Green Deal, the Digital Market Act and the Digital Services Act, and increased Union spending owing to NGEU and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, on staff needs in certain services, in particular the Commission’s Directorate- General for Environment (DG ENV), the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF); expresses concern that the Commission does not have the staff necessary for the work required; asks the Commission tounderlines that the resources of DG ENV have been significantly reduced in the past and that despite the workload stemming from the EU Green Deal agenda, it represents only 1.4% of all Commission staff; asks the Commission to also consider health of own officials and take account of those staff needs, without undermining staff levels in other parts of the Institution;