Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-29-Speech-4-025"
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"en.20050929.3.4-025"2
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"Mr President, the textile industry is highly wage- and labour-intensive. It consists mainly of small and medium-sized firms and has successfully gone through a great deal of structural change in Europe in the last 30 years. We are not at the beginning. The crisis that has now been triggered by the dramatic rise in imports from China is not, however, affecting companies in the European Union alone; it is those in some of the world’s poorest countries, Bangladesh for example, that are primarily affected. They are the ones that are suffering the most. So is our customs union partner Turkey. It would be completely wrong for the European Union now to insist unilaterally on new subsidies. As the Commissioner rightly said, we need to concentrate on innovation, on efficient methods of production.
On the international stage, of course, the Commission must enforce standards and try to ensure that fair conditions for competition prevail. Unfortunately, I am unable to join in the eulogies that say the Commission got everything right in 2005. It waited too long. The high-level group constantly put us off. Then it gave only half a response, did not know that imports were piling up in the ports. The praise for the Commission is therefore very muted.
I would also like to make clear, however, that there are two sides to the question we are debating today. Consumer prices are also involved. We cannot ignore the fact that our consumers in the European Union like being able to buy low-price textiles. Europe’s two largest groups, H[amp]M and Zara, are proving tremendously popular with consumers. This, too, is connected with the fact that the international division of labour cannot be stopped in such a labour-intensive sector. The Commission can however, especially this year, provide a better and more sensible environment for it than in the past. I call on the Commissioner to act sooner and more decisively, not to devise new programmes of subsidies but to ensure that conditions are fair."@en1
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