Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-225"
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"en.20030924.6.3-225"2
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"Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Urso, Commissioners, Cancún was essentially a game of trade agreements. If the WTO survives, this must remain the main focus of negotiations.
Essentially, however, a political game has been played, with the creation of an absurd situation – mentioned a number of times by Commissioner Lamy in the meetings with the European Parliament delegation – in that, at the beginning, the debate focused almost solely on agriculture, which accounts for only 20% of international trade. This is, indeed, an absurd situation, for which we bear a large share of the responsibility.
Cancún was the scene of a propaganda game, and there is certainly no need to explain to the heirs of the Princes Metternich and Talleyrand the significance of propaganda in international politics. We Europeans have given our ‘opponents’, if ever they have deserved that name, a wonderful opportunity for dispute and propaganda on a silver plate, where international public opinion is concerned.
It has been said that there were red lines in the field of agriculture, the abolition of – quite despicable – export subsidies across the board and a maximum ceiling for
subsidies, subsidies which, in theory, should not distort the market. It has been said that, rather than cross the red line, it was better for the negotiations to fail, and that is what happened.
The fact that an industrial power like the European Union is imposing these limits, these ‘red lines’, is one of the reasons why we are now lamenting a failure which affects the European Union much more than it affects the United States, for instance. There is no time to explain why, in my view this is the case.
The very fact that the Commissioner for agriculture – and I am not trying to sleight Mr Fischler in any way – is here today, on a par with Commissioner Lamy, explaining what happened at Cancún, is a sign that something is wrong, of the absurd situation of Europe as regards agricultural policy. That is not, of course, to say that European agricultural protectionism is not ultimately so very different from that of the United States. Quite the opposite: it may be that, with the reform of European agricultural policy, we have succeeded in overtaking the United States; the Japanese are causing more harm than we are with rice. We, however, are thinking of the interests of Europe. The Members know that all the parliamentary delegations we were able to meet insisted on focusing on the agricultural issue. They had their own reasons for doing so – to cover up the tariffs of nearly 90% on Indian fabric. It may well be true, but how do we explain to these people that we want new investment rules? We ask developing countries to impose competition rules and public procurement rules, and then we continue to subsidise meat, rice and other exports.
Then we could discuss Everything but Arms at length, Madam President. We have postponed the definitive abolition of tariffs on rice, banana and sugar imports until 2010. Is this all we can manage to offer the developing countries? What is more, causing loss of interests …"@en1
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"Green Box"1
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