Gheorghe Piperea, ECR: Armament, crisis and identity X - the EU's budgetary priorities

In the context of the adoption of the guidelines for the European Union budget for 2026, the European Parliament has issued a document that, although wrapped in the grandiloquent language of progress and cohesion, raises serious questions about the real direction in which the European project is heading, says MEP Gheorghe Piperea (ECR/AUR). Although the budgetary conduct guide was adopted in the April 1-3 session of the European Parliament, with 441 votes in favor, 173 against and 70 abstentions, the document seems more like a continuation of failed policies than a reset of the European economic and social model, claims the Romanian MEP.

Gheorghe Piperea stated: "The document outlines priorities that are generous in form, but vague and deeply unequal in substance, such as strengthening the EU's defense and security capabilities, stimulating public and private investment, reducing skills gaps and financing the digital and green transition, alongside purely theoretical and declarative objectives regarding economic and social cohesion and the single market. Beyond these pompous and so general formulas, this budgetary conduct guide continues to reflect the same old, rigid mechanisms and biased directions that the EU bureaucracy has accustomed us to in recent years. Funds that should contribute to reducing inequalities between EU member states and regions are redirected to areas such as militarization or abstract ecological objectives, with illusory benefits but certain negative consequences - the impoverishment of the population, the bankruptcy of small and medium-sized enterprises and the aggravation of economic inequalities. Funds that were, in any case, almost inaccessible to those who need real support the most, will now be redirected to satisfy ambitions bureaucratic or pseudo-scientific chimeras, more ideological than socially legitimizing".

The ECR MEP (European Conservatives and Reformists political group) points out that one of the most notable absences in the budget guide is the lack of a real commitment to a fair tax reform. He accuses the fact that the proposal to introduce a 3% tax on wealth over 100 million euros, "which would have brought over 120 billion euros to the budget", was rejected. Likewise, a proposal for a minimum tax of 25% for multinationals - "which annually transfer over 1,000 billion USD to tax havens" - was rejected by a parliamentary majority accused of servility to corporate interests.

Gheorghe Piperea accuses: "The figures are telling: in recent years, 0.5% of the EU population has increased its wealth by 65%, while we, the rest of society, have had to bear the costs of a health, (invented) climate, geo-political, energy and economic crisis that has continuously weakened and made us vulnerable. It is difficult to ignore the fact that, although the pandemic, the fight against climate change and the war have been disastrous for the vast majority of EU citizens, they have functioned as accelerators for the accumulation of wealth for a small, deliberately and declared neo-feudal elite. Today, we are in a situation similar to the early Middle Ages, only that we have to bear higher and more irrational taxes and duties than the cigarette tax and the tithe applicable to serfs. Beyond the rhetoric, the guidelines for the 2026 EU budget seem to be built to preserve the status quo in which they are mimed concern for cohesion and equity, money is directed towards armaments and ambiguous budget allocations are made to finance information and the "modern foundry" (this type of whistleblowing culture is not a guarantee of justice, fairness and truth, but an essentially totalitarian instrument, which gradually annihilates trust in democracy and social justice)".

The ECR MEP claims that the political majority formed in the European Parliament by the EPP, S&D, Renew Europe and the Greens rejects proposals to allocate funds for a profound reform of the common agricultural policy, to combat inequalities between farmers and to restore food sovereignty, for real investments in public housing, to deal with the effects of the cost of living crisis and the deepening of poverty, to combat child poverty.

"Instead of becoming an instrument of correction and support for the many, the EU remains a technocratic structure that mimics progress, but reproduces and deepens imbalances", states Gheorghe Piperea.

The MEP also points out that geopolitically the European Union seems to be following a risky path and argues that the bloc's attempt to distance itself from the US and promote "strategic autonomy" risks transforming the EU into an isolated and weak actor, lacking real capacity for influence. Moreover, plans for trade retaliation against US, while Eastern European countries have never benefited from the same facilities, deepens the feeling of injustice and marginalization, and the EU taking over the funding that Washington no longer provides through USAid is a risky decision that could further destabilize an already tense budget, says the ECR MEP.

Another controversial aspect is the view that inflation, by "relaxing" it, could stimulate economic growth. Mr. Piperea says that, in reality, inflation acts as a hidden tax, affecting especially those with low incomes, and the compression of consumption will hit production, which will be reflected in job losses.

According to the MEP, all this comes against the backdrop of an increasingly evident direction towards centralized digital control, through the implementation of a single digital identity at European level, a project that, under the pretext of administrative efficiency, could become a tool for monitoring and controlling citizens that will certainly be abused, following the model of China, which conditions access to certain services (e.g., loans, jobs, education, culture, tourism) on the social score/rating that includes digital conduct.

"In this context, the recently introduced option to choose X as gender on the identity document is not just a symbolic measure, but an additional step towards decoupling data from biological, legal and administrative realities. Digital identity is no longer a simple tool of control, it is already the battlefield between reality and construction, between truth and the ideological remodeling of man, following the guidelines of the toxic ideologies of the last century, Nazism and communism", argues Gheorghe Piperea.

The ECR MEP concludes that the EU budget for next year does not seem to be an instrument of progress, but rather a continuation of an unfair, bureaucratic and ideological model, which, instead of building a Europe of citizens, equity and sustainable development, favors the status quo and the interests of an elite increasingly disconnected from the real problems facing European citizens.

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