Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-213"
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"en.20030924.6.3-213"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this House, the Union body which is fully representative of the citizens, I feel it is right to start with the document which you, yourselves, adopted on 3 July 2003 – this year, that is – in preparation for the Cancún Ministerial Conference, in which
you rightly underline that the successful outcome of the Doha Development Round negotiations remains an important factor in bolstering economic growth worldwide and strengthening multilateralism and global governance.
Basically, the WTO has a clear structural problem: the lack of a structure organising the negotiators, leading to the absurd situation where we have a presidency which first extends negotiations, at Doha – those who were present at Doha will remember – for over 36 hours and then, however, cuts the Summit short in Cancún; then the mini-ministerial meetings, a useful pre-negotiation exercise, which, however, failed to resolve the issues; lastly, the greatest flaw – a WTO which now has 148 members and, yet, is without efficient decision-making structures. Immediately after the summit, Commissioner Lamy talked of mediaeval organisation. European history teaches us that, in order to reach the
the era of the flowering of civilisation, a common effort of creativity and political vision is needed. Therefore, we must ask ourselves now, in this House, whether Europe did everything possible.
For our part, I would say that we Europeans were well-prepared – or, at least, we thought we were – in particular with the reform of the common agricultural policy, while the United States was moving in the opposite direction with its Farm Bill, but it may be that we did not succeed in getting the message across properly. I feel that we did a good job, not least as regards the most vulnerable, with the Development Agenda itself, with Everything but Arms, with technical assistance measures and capacity building, with the ground-breaking decision on lifesaving medicines, with regard to which we showed ourselves to be willing a long time before the United States. However, maybe we failed to exploit the full potential of our position, which was, moreover, decisive on many issues.
Moreover, we tried to stop the gap widening between the European Union and the United States with the August agreement, but we must ask ourselves whether what we thought was a solution has not actually proved to be a mistake. Was it possible, after a year and a half of trade wars which have widened the gap between the two shores of the Atlantic and divided the principal Doha negotiators, to remedy the situation with two framework-agreements, however important? Could we have done more? I am referring, in particular, to the cotton initiative, which, as an MEP pointed out at Cancún during the Council’s meeting with the interparliamentary delegation present, gradually, over the course of the Summit, assumed ethical and political significance, a symbolic value equal to that acquired by lifesaving medicines at Doha. If we had been quicker off the mark in involving the United States too, in showing greater willingness to resolve the issue, we might have achieved a more successful result. We must go back to that point and start again. This thread must be taken up again in accordance with WTO rules and without this constituting a precedent for other negotiating chapters.
At this juncture, these three questions open up three debates. Firstly, can we resume the Development Agenda at this point? Of course, it is not yet wholly compromised, but its path has become more difficult, full of obstacles and, thus, of necessity, longer. If we do not make up in the coming weeks in Geneva what we lost at Cancún, the process will go on way beyond the deadline of 1 January 2005. On 15 December in Geneva, there is a kind of mid-term review, probably at senior-official level, which will tell us more. Moreover, at the end of next year, the principal negotiators might change, not least because of both the US presidential elections and the end of the present European Commission’s term of office. There will be other negotiators, other issues, other timeframes. Until then, we will need to hold a dialogue, aware of its value, with the new leaders which emerged at Cancún; to recognise these leaders in order to succeed in forging a close, effective negotiating relationship; to pursue the reform of the common agricultural policy and communicate it better; to persuade other industrialised countries to undertake initiatives along the lines of Everything but Arms; to verify that the agreement on lifesaving medicines is being properly enforced, that the agreement is having the desired effect, that it is meeting the needs of the weakest of the weak; to extend technical assistance and capacity building to prevent third negotiating parties starting to lose faith in the transparency and objectives of the European Union because of the inconsistent and fragmented nature of the message, maybe. We wish not to impose but to persuade. We believe not in deceit but in clear agreements.
The second debate is the WTO reforms. Can we reform the structure and the themes of the agenda at the same time? How and where? Is that, perhaps, linked to the crisis of the other international organisations, starting with the Bretton Woods organisations, which are not doing their job, and the organisations dealing with other themes – such as employment, the environment, agriculture itself – which are overloading the WTO agenda? The WTO may be in a crisis similar to that of Aesop’s frog, because it is in danger of swelling up, both because of the number of Members – 148, as I said – and because of its growing agenda, in the face, moreover, of the inertia of other international organisations on themes which are their particular interest and responsibility. I wonder, and I put it to you, whether it might not be appropriate to resume the initiative pursued by the Commission in 2001, creating a special group to work on the reform and transparency of the World Trade Organisation, to explore the possible institutional solutions for the organisation in depth.
Lastly, the third debate is whether we need to adjust our trade policy in any way. It is no coincidence that President Bush’s personal representative, Robert Zoellick, announced within minutes of the failure of Cancún that the United States was going to forge ahead with the creation of the FTAA – the Free Trade Area of the Americas – and, in any case, with bilateral agreements. These great continents are linked by very strong bilateral agreements. Without undermining the principle of multilateralism, Europe must take the initiative and step up its action, starting precisely with the implementation of the EU-Mercosur agreement, on which a great deal of negotiation work has been done, for which I pay tribute to the Commissioners, and which now needs to be brought to a swift, successful conclusion. The Barcelona agreement on Euromed also certainly needs to be fully implemented. These are bilateral agreements which do not undermine multilateral agreements, which must remain our main priority, but strengthen and pave the way for them. Brazil – although only with regard to the agricultural
for the moment – has, together with others, capably taken on leadership of the countries of the southern hemisphere, with the creation of the G-21. It is an authoritative, democratic leadership, European in nature. We must place our trust in it and strengthen the historic, economic and commercial ties with Latin America as a whole; let us endeavour to include this objective in next year’s agenda too.
I would like, if I may, after this discouraging analysis of negotiating issues, to end by sharing with you something which distinguishes us as Europeans. Upon hearing the news of the failure of the Summit in Cancún, a journalist from a prestigious Italian newspaper asked me a spontaneous, maybe too frank question. He asked me at the press conference whether we might have made a mistake in resolving the issue of lifesaving medicines before Cancún, suggesting that if they had remained on the negotiating table during the Summit we might have had more influence, more negotiating power. I immediately replied, interpreting, I believe, the values of our Europe: ‘If we are the European Union, the pioneers in the recognition of civil rights and the dignity of the human person, it is because we believe that the highest value, life, takes precedence over negotiating considerations.’ If Cancún served any purpose, indeed, it is precisely that it may have forced many countries to remove barriers to agreement in the run-up to the Ministerial Conference. Of that, at least, we can be proud.
For its part, the European Council took these considerations on board, reaffirming in the conclusions of the GAER Council of 21 July 2003 the European Union’s fundamental commitment to a successful conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda by the end of 2004, the DDA being a single undertaking aimed at achieving an ambitious, comprehensive and balanced package of agreements.
On these bases, the European Union went to Cancún, but – as you know – our desires, our hopes and our undertakings were shattered at the Summit in the hot, torrid climate which was caused by more than just the weather. Yet we all thought that we had done everything possible over those months, that our preparations would ensure that the negotiations could genuinely take off and that the timeframes laid down at Doha would be respected. It is therefore necessary, in this cooling-off phase, to ask ourselves a number of questions about the Summit and the preparations we made for it. Where did we go wrong? In particular, we need to ask ourselves this question because Europe, perhaps more than anyone else – and this is to our credit, not a criticism – believes in multilateralism, for that is the principle underpinning our Union of sovereign States. The work of the European Parliament, your work, is the highest expression of that principle.
Before I raise some questions, I feel it is only right and proper to confirm before the European Union body which is fully representative of the citizens that Commissioner Lamy and Commissioner Fischler – who are to speak after me – have always fully adhered with wisdom and flexibility to the mandate given to them by the European Council, which is, moreover, mirrored to a large extent in the demands contained in your resolution. Furthermore, as President-in-Office, I can assure the House that, at all times during the Summit, at every meeting held and in every measure – including bilateral measures – taken or supported by the individual Members of the Union, there was always full coherence and consistency. Europe really did work as a team! In Cancún phraseology, Europe was a genuine G-25, thanks, not least, to the substantial contribution of the accession countries.
At this point, we must attempt to respond, although it will not be easy, to the three questions which appear to be most urgent, and to discuss together with you three short- to medium-term scenarios. Firstly, why was the fifth Ministerial Conference a failure? Secondly, who is to blame for that? Thirdly, did Europe do everything it could?
Why did the fifth Ministerial Conference fail? First of all, we have to realise that the ambiguities in the agenda for the negotiations and the issues which had not been resolved at Doha served to tighten the noose at Cancún, particularly where the two main subjects – agriculture and the Singapore issues – were concerned. In both cases, the ambiguities were left over from Doha. As regards the agriculture text, ambiguity was introduced in too many places during the fourth Ministerial Conference, during the very last minutes, the very last exchanges. Moreover, a similar thing happened with the postponement of the decisions on the Singapore issues, which were the subject of a heated debate at Doha and were in danger of bringing the talks to a standstill then. At the fourth world Conference, these ambiguities were resolved thanks to the decision of the Qatar presidency to extend the negotiations for a further 36 hours in order to discuss precisely these matters.
As you know, the solution adopted then allowed the matter to be inserted more or less effectively in the single undertaking but without any specific negotiating commitment. This means
that the success of Doha is probably due to the level of international need. It was the exceptional nature of Doha, the fact that it took place so soon after the tragic events of 11 September, which caused the Fourth Ministerial Conference to be a success.
It may be, however, that, in actual fact, the WTO crisis which started in Seattle was only temporarily alleviated in Doha and that it re-emerged in Cancún, not by chance in relation to those same Doha issues. These are two questions which are relatively similar. On the one hand – with regard to agriculture – Europe and the countries of the northern hemisphere created a cultural exception, which was completely legitimate but which is, still today, in conflict with the hopes of the major developing countries, who are actually accusing us of protectionism and of distorting the market. On the other, there are the Singapore issues, the other issues relating to the governance of globalisation, which are a priority for Europe and the major investor countries but which the developing countries feel are an invasion of their rights, which has led them – or some of them, at least – to create a kind of cultural exception too, at least for the time being.
The second question is: who is to blame? The negotiating parties must certainly take some of the responsibility. They did not take recognition of the other as a basic premise. Quite the opposite: they often sought, more than anything, to divide the opposing side. After the August agreement between the European Union and the United States on the agricultural
and NAMA, there was a strong reaction from about 20 countries, led by India, Brazil, China and South Africa and including developing countries from the Cairns Group, which continued consistently throughout the Summit. However, precisely this initial impetus – a negative rather than a positive impetus, given the dissimilarity between the countries involved – resulted in a polarisation of positions which soured the negotiations. For the same motives, some African countries sought – they may have had no other choice – to take up a new, offensive position, promoting initiatives on themes such as cotton, for example, and further widening the gap between the positions on the traditional chapters."@en1
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