PM Orban: Green Deal measures must not affect Europe's competitiveness at global level

AGERPRES special correspondent Dana Piciu reports: Prime Minister Ludovic Orban stated on Wednesday in a joint press conference with the President of the European Parliament David Sassoli that he is concerned with the fact that the measures stipulated in the Green Deal might affect Europe's competitiveness at global level, insisting at the same time that each country must be allowed to access the necessary resources to be able to reach the objectives of this Deal. "I presented our opinions to Mr President, both regarding the budget and the Green Deal. In what concerns the budget, our concern is that we need a substantial allocation for cohesion, which is extremely important. Also, we still plead for maintaining substantial funding for agriculture to ensure the development of this sector. With regard to the Green Deal, we discussed with him about the need of each country to benefit from the right to analyze its capacity of reaching the Deal's objectives and, moreover, and also about the need that the mechanism of the fund ensure a fair transition to allow each country to support the necessary costs to be able to reach the objectives of the Green Deal," Orban said at the European Parliament. He added that the European Parliament will continue to debate, alongside the other institutions, on the co-decision mechanism, meaning approximately 40 normative acts, which will be necessary for the implementation of the Green Deal. "I expressed my concern that the Green Deal measures might affect Europe's competitiveness at global level and the capacity of European companies to compete and further develop on the world market. Moreover, each country must be allowed to access the necessary resources to be able to reach the objectives of the Green Deal," mentioned the PM. According to him, the political developments in Romania are "extremely positive" and will lead to the strengthening of the dialogue at European level, an improvement of collaboration and a more active involvement of the authorities in Bucharest in the decision-making process at European level. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)