Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-02-Speech-3-170"
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".
Mr President, as the speeches have shown, multilateral trade negotiations in the twenty-first century have many facets and are a mixture of interests and values, one that is, in any case for us Europeans, to some extent indissoluble. They also raise, as we have realised from listening to you, issues around the overall balances on the international stage, between North and South, North and North and South and South. I would briefly like to respond to a few of your speeches, grouping them into three themes, first of all access to the market, then the rules of international trade, and finally, several other issues that are not necessarily directly linked to the first two but are worthy of clarification.
Regarding special and differential treatment and issues of implementation, I think that I indicated in my initial speech that the European Union was open and that it was more a case of convincing other partners in the North, the United States, Japan, Canada, to demonstrate a little more flexibility. We are working on this.
I will deal with two or three more questions. Regarding cotton, Mr Van den Berg, it is not the Union, for once, that is being accused by the developing countries. We do not export any cotton. We import a huge amount of cotton and what we do produce in no way supports exportation. We must produce 2% to 3% of the cotton produced in the world. It is therefore the United States that is being challenged on this point.
Mrs McNally and Mr van den Berg talked about fundamental working standards. Unfortunately, this subject is not on the programme for Cancun, because it was not put on the programme for the cycle of negotiations launched in Doha. Some, but not all of the subjects launched in Doha are on the programme for Cancun. Having said that, we cannot add new subjects to the Doha programme. You know our position: we regret not having managed to better link fundamental work standards and the rules of the World Trade Organization. To some extent, we made do with our bilateral policies in order to achieve this. Therefore we cannot, unfortunately, expect good news from Cancun on this point. We need to wait for another cycle of negotiations to put the subject back on the table.
On the question of what the Commission thinks of Parliament being involved at the end of the negotiations, I have no objection at all, on behalf of the Commission, to the results of the cycle ending with a vote in the European Parliament, unless of course the Council of Ministers disagrees. In any case, the Commission’s position is what I have just told you, in response to Mrs Mann and Mr Clegg.
As regards Russia’s accession to the WTO, I can tell Mr Suominen that we are working on it. I am spending my day here today, with my colleague German Gref, who is the Russian Minister for the Economy and Finance and the negotiator appointed by Mr Putin. This is probably our sixth negotiating session and, thanks to the debate this afternoon, you have given him the opportunity to look around this lovely town of Strasbourg, and I am sure that he will be very grateful to you.
I can tell Mrs Auroi and Mrs Boudjenah that we debated GATS only a few weeks ago. Parliament took a position on it, so I am not going to come back to the subject.
Finally, regarding the good news that Mrs Mann gave us on the joint demonstration in Cancun by the European Parliament and the International Parliamentary Union, and the work that she, Mr Schwaiger, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and many others have done to associate the national parliaments more with the work of the WTO, for the Commission this is good news. You know that we support your efforts in this area.
First of all, on access to the market, concerning the industrial sector, I agree with what has been said. We must move towards what some of the developing countries want. It is in their interest and also in our interest. However, let us remember that there is also a South-South interest in the liberalisation of trade for manufactured products. Trade in manufactured products still represents 80% of world trade. Here we have all the dimensions that I mentioned, and Mrs Ferrer is right in saying that in these matters, we should not stop at tariff issues, but also look at non-tariff barriers.
You have all spoken a great deal about agriculture, which is quite normal due to the current circumstances. It is true that the reform of the common agricultural policy that was adopted last week gives more impressive results in terms of discipline – the issue of budgetary support for our farmers – than in terms of promises of broader access to the markets in the future. However, we have not yet agreed to confirm in some way at WTO level, the disciplines that we decided between us. We are free to confirm them or not at international level and we will do so if others do. We are therefore looking for something in return, which is what we are going to work on for now, as the support compensates for some handicaps and takes into account some concerns among European consumers and citizens. As Mrs Auroi and Mr Bernier said, with our support we are compensating for this type of handicap or additional constraint.
Mr Clegg asked whether there was still room for manoeuvre in the negotiations in terms of access to the market. I am sure he will allow me, and Mr Fischler, to remain discreet as regards how much we have in our pocket. Mr Clegg will be aware that it is not good to negotiate with transparent pockets, so our pockets will not be transparent in a public sitting such as today’s. However, he is right, as is Mr Della Vedova. There is no doubt that the forthcoming reform of the sugar market, which Mr Fischler and the Commission have announced for the autumn, is probably more promising from this point of view for a product that holds great interest for developing countries.
I would like to point out, in response to Mr Souchet, that this reform of the common agricultural policy was made with European considerations in mind, by Europeans and for Europeans. It is all the better if it improves our position in international negotiations, but that was not our original motivation. Our motivation, as established at the Berlin European Council, was to carry out a mid-term review of some organisations of the market and of the functioning of our support for agriculture.
With regard to the rules, some of you have mentioned access to medication. I will not repeat what I said in my initial speech. The European Union’s position on this is clear: we support the commitment made in December and we expect the Americans to adhere to it, otherwise there will be a major problem in Cancun.
Regarding non-commercial concerns, to which Mr van den Berg made particular reference, they are indeed on the table, including for agriculture: animal welfare, the environment and food safety. There are also subjects concerned with the regulation of international trade, such as the geographical indications cited by Mr Garot and Mr Cunha. You are right. We cannot tell our farmers that the time has come to think less about quantity and more about quality without keeping to the agenda that we have, which consists of improving and making more operational and more easy what the WTO texts are already establishing in terms of protection: geographical indications.
The last delicate subject is the so-called Singapore subjects, and in particular investment. Our starting point has always been that it is better to have a good multilateral international platform than a bad jungle of bilateral agreements. You rightly said that some developing countries are not enthusiastic, but not all of them! Some others are entirely in favour of starting negotiations on these subjects, particularly investment. Fundamentally, what developing countries are saying is a little like what I have heard here this afternoon: some are very much in favour, and some are very much against, some are ‘maybe’ for, and others are against ‘unless’. That is the situation we are in and in answer to Mr Désir, in the choice between the bilateral jungle and multilateral order, I have often heard him say things that are more multilateralist than what he has said this afternoon.
What path should we take? We must stay firm on the need to deal with these issues, while responding to the justified and repeated concerns of a number of developing countries, to the fear that they have that by committing to multilateral agreements on these subjects, they would be reducing the area of autonomy of their economic policies. We must find ways of responding to this concern. In any case, in general, I am still persuaded that multilateral is better than bilateral in these fields."@en1
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