Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-13-Speech-1-082"
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"en.19991213.3.1-082"2
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".
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank all the men and women among you who gave me their support both during the Conference and today. I am particularly appreciative of this, since I think it is a method and style of working rather than personality which is involved, and this method of working is one that will prove useful in future. In any case, the conclusion that I draw is that this is the way forward.
I shall now make a few comments about the essential points. Firstly, as many of you have said, this failure at Seattle was probably a source of disappointment primarily to developing countries. If we acknowledge this fact, which I believe is now proven, looking back on it a week later, it is thus once the liberalisation of trade has been decided, managed and brought under control, that developing countries see the value it has for them, and no doubt they consider it better for them than the status quo with the development of bilateral relations which do not work in their favour. I believe that this is worth thinking about for the future, and is certainly something that we need to think about.
My second comment concerns the institutional business of the WTO. I do not belong to that group of people which believes that this is where the main problem lies. I do, however, believe that part of the problem lies here. We should not be reinventing the wheel, admittedly, but what use is it if it has stopped turning properly? Let us at least take action to get the wheel turning again, or to adjust the load it is carrying. I think that this is the main thing, while taking account, as I believe the Commission is doing, of the extreme difficulties in getting 135 contractual parties to agree on an institutional system which is different to that which currently exists.
A third comment on the environment. I have listened to and taken in what you have said. Let us simply be aware that, in this area, we have considerable ambitions in relation to those of the other partners around the WTO table. Everyone can understand why developing countries may have a less ambitious environmental agenda to our own. But that the United States should have an environmental agenda less ambitious than our own, as is the case, is something which definitely presents us with a more difficult problem, for if neither developing countries nor the Americans agree with our agenda, we shall then have great difficulty in moving it forward. I believe that is something worth thinking about.
I stick to our credo, the Council conclusions, and the mandate which I was given. We must still, however, be quite aware that all this will not prove easy and that it will be necessary, at some point, either to be more convincing or to be more active.
I now come to my fourth and penultimate comment. Like many of you, I believe that it is now towards developing countries that we should direct our efforts to convince and our ability to form alliances. This will require persuasion, political effort and the presentation of arguments. Without doubt, it will also require some additional work which we shall have to think about. I am not currently in a position right to outline this support, but it is certain that these additional efforts will have to involve the increased opening up of our markets to developing countries.
I believe it is not worth discussing this at length until the details are clearer, but I know too that as soon as the details do become clearer then enormous problems will arise. We shall have to think about this, and, when the time comes, present our proposals on the subject to the Council and Parliament.
In concluding, I shall mention the issue of transparency. Yes, Seattle was a transparent event. One might reflect at length as to whether the fact that intense media activity, as there was at Seattle, always coincides with active transparency. Personally, I must tell you that just occasionally I feel some doubt and a little unease as to this coincidence, which we all too often try to perceive, between a massive media presence and active transparency.
Leaving that aside, in Seattle the WTO was, nonetheless, subjected to an ordeal of transparency for which it was obviously not prepared. If that was the case then so much the better. What we have to say regarding liberalisation, globalisation, our own concept of it and the question as to whether it is good or bad for the citizens you represent and to whom we are accountable, well, that is so much the better. This debate is one that I am happy to see take place in public. I think, as a number of you have said, that Europe has a stake in this debate since, as far as it is concerned and in this area, it is accustomed to it: why not share the benefit of our experience?"@en1
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