Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-12-Speech-2-067"
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"en.20050412.7.2-067"2
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"Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Kinnock on an excellent report. I am very happy to introduce the opinion of the Committee on International Trade, which was passed unanimously and adopted
by the Committee on Development. That demonstrates the growing consensus that while trade clearly has a role in poverty eradication, the current trends and institutions of trade policy will need urgent reform if they are genuinely to lead to poverty eradication and sustainable development.
Our opinion notes the recent report by UNCTAD and others that demonstrates that unfettered and extensive trade liberalisation does not necessarily translate into significant poverty eradication, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. I quote from the UNCTAD 2004 report on least-developed countries, which says: ‘The emerging post-liberal trends do not indicate that substantial and sustained poverty reduction will occur. On balance, future poverty reduction seems to have worsened’. So our first point in this opinion is to ask the Commission and Council to note that analysis and to modify trade policy accordingly.
The first place they could apply that reformed trade policy is on the EU proposals for economic partnership agreements, because again increasing evidence suggests that if economic partnership agreements are to become genuine instruments of development, they have to offer non-reciprocal market access for as long as developing countries require it. I welcome recent statements from my own government in the UK that appear to guarantee poorest countries as much time as they need before acquiring that reciprocity. I urge the Council to adopt that position but warn that it will not be credible unless Article 24 of the GATT is revised accordingly as well.
Finally we call on the Council and Commission to address the almost forgotten issue of commodity prices, which is strangely absent from the WTO agenda. According to Oxfam, developing countries would have earned USD 243 billion more in 2002 if the real prices of ten key commodities had remained at their 1980 levels. That is almost five times the world’s annual aid budget. We desperately need urgent action on this issue if we are to have any chance of meeting the MDG goals."@en1
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