Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-11-Speech-3-139"
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"en.20061011.16.3-139"2
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"Mr President, the Council’s decision concerning duties on shoes from China and Vietnam is another example of the EU’s protectionism. The decision is an assault on the multilateral agreement system and, specifically, the Multifibre Agreement, and it excessively punishes those Member States that have managed to comply with the agreement. The duties hits, for example, Denmark, which has transferred its production of shoes to China and only retained the design and marketing aspects in Denmark. Even worse, the EU is now undermining the WTO and the multilateral agreement system.
It is also remarkable that the Commissioner does not even listen to people when they are talking. Even though he is Finnish, he is unable, when standing over there, to understand my Danish. I would point out to the President that this is completely unacceptable.
Commissioner Mandelson will now pin his hopes on bilateral trading agreements. The justification for this is that, as long as the WTO route is barred, we must find new ways. I would point out, however, that it is, in actual fact, the EU that, together with the United States, is mainly responsible for the WTO negotiations having stalled. No doubt there are indeed problems involving human rights, interest rate policy and environmental standards, but they must not be solved through protectionism. They must be solved through binding multilateral cooperation. Strengthening the bilateral approach will only buttress poor countries’ dependence on the EU. It is a poorly disguised continuation of colonial exploitation. Commissioner Mandelson calls the bilateral agreements ‘stepping stones’ to better global trade. They are not that, however. On the contrary. They entail a rejection of the WTO and the multilateral trading system and thus also of the ideals of fair and free trade and of the fight against poverty, which the Commission otherwise emphasises as its global vision. With the bilateral strategy, that vision is just empty words."@en1
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