Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-16-Speech-1-134"
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"en.20060116.17.1-134"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, the principal merit of the agreement reached in Hong Kong is that of maintaining the multilateral system and of not derailing the development round begun in Doha. This agreement, which the Commissioner himself noted is an interim one, is a long way from concluding the round. Much remains to be done. Following Seattle and Cancun, however, a new setback would have opened the door to a proliferation of even more unbalanced bilateral agreements between the North and the South. The aim of the round must continue to be one of ensuring that the trade rules serve development, and this must remain the EU’s goal, even though we know that it will mean us obtaining less than what we offer to our partners in the South, not least where market access is concerned.
Commissioner, at times I have been hard on you and the Commission in relation to trade policy. My group and myself will remain vigilant and demanding, particularly with regard to key issues such as public services or the support measures for LDCs and the ACP States. That being said, I should like today, in this House, to pay tribute to the work you have done, not only on keeping the European Parliament delegation constantly up-to-date, but also – and above all – on ensuring that the Member States’ position was coherent in Hong Kong. In saying that, I am thinking, in particular, of the difficult decision that had to be taken in order to reach a unanimous agreement on the elimination of agricultural export subsidies by 2013. It was a long-awaited decision and an important sign – including in terms of supporting and doing more to defend the CAP in the future – even though we know that, as regards agriculture, we still need to break the back of the negotiations on domestic support and market access.
You have also shown the flexibility required to prevent a freeze on industrial tariffs and services, a freeze that would have proved fatal for the negotiations. You will need to remain flexible because it is only right that developing countries should want to control open trade and to carry on being able to regulate their public services, and that they should not jeopardise their weakest industries.
I have one final comment to make: Hong Kong has demonstrated once again the need for an in-depth reform of the WTO. We have seen once again the extent to which there is still a deep crisis of confidence between industrialised countries and developing countries and the extent to which the clash between national interests constantly threatens the steps taken towards achieving our common objectives: development, the eradication of poverty and fairer trade on an international scale. We will only salvage the multilateral trade system by ensuring that it ties in with the other organisations of the UN system that work towards human development. This will be achieved by counterbalancing free trade with social development objectives, which amounts to guaranteeing that trade rules take account of non-commercial aspects, the environment, public health and social rights."@en1
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