Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-29-Speech-4-026"
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"en.20050929.3.4-026"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, in the course of this debate you have received a few congratulations and many criticisms. I think that, above and beyond all the polemic, this is due to Parliament’s grave concern regarding the future of the textile industry and above all, which is the striking aspect of this matter, due to the perceived lack of foresight on the part of the Commission and of the Member States. True, you have mentioned an unprecedented increase in volume, but this increase in import volumes was anything but unpredictable. Everyone knew what we were dealing with regarding the end of the multi-fibre agreement and the lifting of quotas on 1 January this year.
Consequently, I cannot understand why we had to wait for so long for the Commission to react. We had the option of bringing safeguard clauses into play, which is permitted under the WTO’s rules. It was not at all necessary to wait for agreement from the Chinese, nor to wait until June.
Furthermore, we also question the conditions under which the protocol signed on 10 June has been implemented and the way in which we ended up in this imbroglio of 85 million products piled up in Customs and breaches of the quotas agreed for 2005. How is it that appropriate measures were not provided for when the agreement was signed and what guarantee do we have that the conditions of this agreement can be kept for the two and a half years to which you referred and which are supposed to give the sector time to organise its restructuring.
The professional textile and clothing association has signalled the loss of 165 000 jobs since the beginning of the year and projects that one million jobs will be put at risk by the end of the year. Can you confirm these figures? What measures does the European Commission intend to take? Can the restructuring fund, which was defended by Mr Špidla and the previous Commission, be used to help the employment areas and businesses worst affected?
Finally, several speakers have referred to the structural problems now posed by competition with China, which distorts competition in reality, according to the WTO’s rules: export subsidies and hidden aid, such as the provision of electricity or interest-free loans given to state-owned businesses by state-owned banks. We could also ask ourselves whether it is time to raise the question, along with the other partners of the European Union within the WTO that are targeted by this increase in Chinese imports – Bangladesh, Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco – of fundamental social standards. Does the Commission intend to talk to these partners and to put these subjects on the negotiating table, particularly at the Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong?"@en1
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