Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-16-Speech-3-030"
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"en.20000216.2.3-030"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that this is an appropriate initiative and that it makes very good sense. As various Members have already commented, we often encounter situations where there is an enormous contradiction between our intentions in terms of development and cooperation policy and the damage we inflict with our other sectoral policies, whose objectives run counter to development in those countries. And we are not just talking about the concrete impact of our common policies, tourism, the environment, agriculture, fisheries and industry. We are talking in general terms – and this is more serious – about contradictions between our economic and trade policies and our defence policies. So there is a whole raft of contradictions.
In my opinion, these contradictions are not all that serious in terms of Community policies. They are, if anything, more serious as regards certain objectives and industries in some Member States. We have to be aware of this. We often adopt resolutions on peace processes in other parts of the world, as was recently the case with Indonesia, when we protested at the top of our voices only to discover subsequently that some European countries had been supplying them with arms and military equipment. For me, these are the most serious contradictions in all this, more serious than the contradictions inherent in any incompatibility between sectoral policies. We obviously know that, even within any one country, there are always contradictions between various policies. That is a fact of life. And we must also be aware that there will be contradictions between the various Community policies, in this case development policy. We have to be aware that these contradictions exist and that we need to minimise them. The underlying reason for presenting this resolution is that the objective of minimising these contradictions is a fair and wise one. I believe that it is both proper and fitting to set up a centre for monitoring this coherence between Community policies and development and cooperation policy, and that this monitoring centre’s sphere of activity should not be limited just to Community policies, but should also cover Member States’ actions and policies, including the actions of economic groups, which I think are also important. This monitoring centre should draw up an annual report on developments in these policies and on their impact and interaction.
I have left to the end a question that I regard as fundamental and which I think needs to be noted and approved by this House. Our objective of minimising contradictions between development and cooperation policy and other policies has to be a valid objective, not merely within the European Union, but also at world level, given the increasing globalisation of the economy. If we want fair world trade we will have to gain acceptance for this principle during the next WTO round of multilateral negotiations, because it would be contradictory if the European Union imposed a rigid but fair discipline on itself, only for the United States and the other major powers to do the opposite and to take advantage of our restraint. That is why I consider it to be essential – and fair – for these principles to be established at the next WTO round."@en1
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