Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-24-Speech-3-156"
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"en.20011024.7.3-156"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, Commissioner Lamy, ladies and gentlemen, we need more and not, as has been called for several times, less, international cooperation. For small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, we need the basic conditions to be legally certain and foreseeable. The aim has to be to use world trade to create more wealth for our people. In so doing, however, we must not overlook the fact that Europe has 18 million small enterprises, which, at the end of the day, employ two-thirds of the workforce. This means that salaries are mainly being paid by small and medium-sized companies. Sixty per cent of GDP and, important for us politicians, 80% of taxes come from small companies.
That is why where the WTO is concerned, we should not only consider involving and integrating the ILO in this process and reflect on how we might better structure it, but should also and especially bring the social dialogue and the social partners to the fore. The Everything But Arms initiative should not contain the clause ‘Everything But Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’, but instead ‘Everything For Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’. The economy is at the centre of this discussion, and this is something that we should not forget in the whole WTO debate.
Very briefly on TRIPS: here we should consider, in particular, having compulsory licences and, above all, development aid; we should consider having calls for tender and also giving countries medicines of the necessary quality.
As regards the dispute settlement mechanism, I should like to recall that many companies and individual firms are damaged by WTO rulings, for example because of carousel trade retaliation. Here I should like to ask: how do these companies obtain redress? How do they come to be damaged by an international agreement which is not actually in accordance with the law of the country concerned?
Finally, we need to introduce more transparency into these areas and ensure that decisions are made closer to the people. That is why I welcome the fact that President Neyts will support the European Parliament and parliaments throughout the world in their efforts to bring more transparency and also in the end, I hope, more wealth into this world."@en1
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