Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-30-Speech-3-026"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051130.10.3-026"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Mr President, I am delighted to be here today with Commissioner Mandelson. I should like to make some introductory remarks on the preparations for the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong next month, before handing the floor to Commissioner Mandelson who is spearheading the negotiations on behalf of the European Union.
I also wish to speak briefly about the dangers of inaction. I am sure the EU is aware that there are those who feel that the approach we are taking is not the right one. However, in a changing world economic landscape, it is perhaps inevitable that we hear calls for a more protectionist approach to be adopted, within both the developed and the developing world. It is clear that we must resist this trend. Protectionism benefits only small, isolated groups within society; often those with the loudest voices. It impedes growth, stifles competition and innovation and, in many instances, is just plainly unfair.
Nonetheless, it would be equally wrong for us to ignore the genuine concerns that prompt such responses in the first place. Those concerns are often over the impact of liberalisation on specific communities that are heavily reliant on particular industries. They arise when people feel that the global trading system has forgotten the human element in its negotiations. Whilst the benefits of trade liberalisation are global, we need to recognise that change can be both local and profound in nature. That is what we are doing with the offers that are being made by the Commission. However, this is also why we need to work hard to ensure that poor countries get the support they need to adjust and take advantage of new trading opportunities. With the other developed countries we must build on Commission President Barroso’s pledge earlier this year to increase aid for trade to EUR 1 billion a year and enhance further trade-related assistance, including investment in infrastructure within growing aid budgets. The EU is by far the biggest provider of trade-related assistance worldwide. We are therefore in an excellent position to encourage others to join us in a significant and effective initiative.
In conclusion, Hong Kong presents us with an opportunity to make significant progress in increasing global trade flows, but we also have an opportunity to ensure that the world trading system is fairer and spreads the benefit of trading more widely. We must not lose sight of the balance needed between the two. That is what the Council, working with the Commission and Mr Mandelson, who is leading the negotiations on the EU’s behalf in consultation with the European Parliament, is seeking to achieve.
The Members of the European Parliament know that this is a crucial time for the world trading system. The Doha development agenda, launched in Qatar in 2001, is an ambitious agenda. The goals the global trading system has set itself are high, and rightly so. There are few more important issues than the need to reach a consensus on trade liberalisation that will be good not just for development in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, but also for our businesses here in the European Union.
I would like to remind Members of this Parliament of some of the important matters at stake. The last trade round added over EUR 400 billion to global GDP, and estimates suggest that success in cutting trade barriers by a third in the DDA would increase incomes worldwide by more than EUR 500 billion. The global economy enjoyed a boost last year. Real export growth of 9% helped it to grow by 4%, but a successful DDA tackling barriers to trade will continue to fuel world growth for years to come.
These trade negotiations are not simply about altering the relative size of different countries’ slices of the world’s trade pie; they are about making a bigger pie for all members of the global trading system. The DDA provides a real opportunity to improve terms of trade across the world and to demonstrate practically that 149 countries can work together for the common good. A successful DDA will help underpin the status of the WTO as a multilateral institution and help underpin the multilateral trading system. That has to be good for all member countries. A successful conclusion to the DDA is absolutely central to showing that the world has the capacity to confront its multilateral challenges with the necessary purpose to overcome them. However, let us not forget that Doha is a development round. It is an opportunity to tackle some of the most fundamental injustices at the heart of world trade.
This is an important issue, and it will be important at Hong Kong that we reach agreement on an interim package of measures for developing countries, as proposed by Commissioner Mandelson. In particular, the EU would like to see WTO members endorse strong special and differential treatment to give developing countries the flexibility to make their own development choices; agree a package of measures for developing countries related to implementing the Uruguay Round; agree to provide complete market access for all least-developed countries to all developed country markets, as the EU has already offered; agree to eliminate all forms of export subsidy; agree that LDCs should not be forced to open their markets in these negotiations; and agree to take strong action on commodities of special importance to poor countries, address the issue of preference erosion and simplify the rules applied to exports from least-developed countries.
I would like briefly to turn my attention to some of the detailed issues at stake. Commissioner Mandelson will obviously go into these in a lot more detail, so I will simply say that, on agriculture, we have a chance in Hong Kong to tackle distortions in the market that work against the poorest countries. Developing countries would benefit from the eradication of trade-distorting export practices and the reduction of domestic subsidies that can undermine otherwise competitive production in these poor countries. Combined with lower tariffs, this will give all developing countries improved market access to sell agricultural goods to the EU, the US and each other. This would in turn help those countries reduce the still high levels of poverty, particularly in rural areas.
We are all aware that the idea of increased agricultural imports into the EU, particularly for the larger emerging economies, is liable to raise concerns in some Member States and I certainly do not under-estimate those concerns. For in Europe we spend over 40% of our budget on agriculture to support around 5% of our workforce and only 2% of EU GDP. Japan subsidises its rice by around five times its market value. The US cotton industries receive USD 4 billion a year in subsidies: more than the total income of the four West African nations most dependent on cotton. Meanwhile, in many sub-Saharan economies, agriculture accounts for more than half the workforce and for more than half of GDP.
We must work towards abolishing all developed countries’ trade-distorting subsidies. The effects on poorer countries of the developed world’s agricultural policies are unsustainable and need to be changed. We in the EU have led the way in making those changes. The reforms of the common agricultural policy that we have already agreed are significant and are not always recognised fully by our WTO partners. We have also responded promptly and positively, with the Commission making offers in the negotiations. We now need to see a response from others to what we have put on the table.
A successful conclusion on the NAMA negotiations could increase global incomes by over EUR 40 billion a year within a decade. That is a great potential prize. If we cut all trade barriers by half we could raise the annual income of developing countries by more than EUR 110 billion – three times the value of all aid budgets put together. Of course, while South-South trade has the potential to grow through the NAMA negotiations, so too do our own economies in terms of increased trade with partners across the world. European exporters still face significant tariff barriers to other markets. The EU could gain EUR 20 billion per year from NAMA alone. So the potential wins from agriculture and NAMA are clear, but it is important that the potential long-term benefits from services liberalisation and trade facilitation, resulting in greater real market access, are also given equal weight in the negotiations. That is something that the Commission and Commissioner Mandelson have been pressing for very strongly on our behalf, because services make up 70% of world output, but only 20% of world trade. Currently both the developed and the developing countries have restrictions on services, and gains on services liberalisation could double the gains from the liberalisation of trade in goods. We all agree that we need to find an effective way of making progress on services. However, I personally believe that we must avoid imposing prescriptive requirements on developing countries to liberalise services."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples