Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-239"
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"en.20070131.25.3-239"2
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".
Mr President, it is so hugely flattering to speak to an almost empty Chamber!
Many of the islands are politically fragile, as we have seen through the many military coups in Fiji. I am sick of hearing about military coups in Fiji, but they need to be able to feel that they are going to have a future as two communities together, and we need to help them with that. They must stop or we should stop the aid. That is a threat, but we need to have some sort of quid pro quo on this issue.
Provision of good governance throughout the Pacific is vital, and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals we must also achieve a certain measure of mutuality. In Papua New Guinea, for example, and the Solomon Islands, they have problems with regard to AIDS. The EU, as a major donor to the region, has an opportunity to create a strategy that will support the island countries of the Pacific in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and bringing their people to realise their full potential. Our report is just the start.
The Cook Islands, the Fiji Islands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu – exotic places, fantastic places, so distant, so far away, so romantic and so on, but actually they are in need. All these countries are part of the Pacific Islands. Historically, Europe has had the strongest influence in the Pacific region through colonial rule. The end of the Second World War hastened the end of European colonialism, but the relationship continued. Through the Lomé Convention and the Cotonou Agreement, the Pacific region is now linked to us and our daily lives through the ACP.
Even if the population of the Pacific Islands is small, we have to bear in mind that the Pacific Ocean itself covers nearly 30% of the planet’s surface. Their location, while bringing huge benefits to the region through fisheries and tourism, means they find themselves isolated through a tyranny of distance. However, advances in technology, air travel and infrastructure have helped to alleviate their economic circumstances.
Another thing they should consider – and I am very pleased to see the Commission in full strength here – is that the English-speaking digital economy may provide another way forward for them to provide business process outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing services to the United States and Australasia.
The region shows an economic contrast, with annual GDP per capita ranging from EUR 500 to EUR 8000. This is like comparing Somalia to Bulgaria. Therefore, the strategy for the region must have a certain flexibility in order to ensure that the development assistance is channelled according to national and regional parities and to achieve maximum benefit in both the richer and poorer islands.
For many Pacific islanders, agricultural products are their primary exports to international markets, supplying commodities such as sugar, copra, bananas, coconuts and palm oil. However, they face challenges such as global warming, which is a huge challenge for them. We have also given them another interesting problem: economic partnership agreements – EPAs – which they have to contend with. They tell me that they are losing revenue through their intra-regional customs union. What are they to do? Do we help them, support them? Do we create infrastructure so that they can come out of this problem? We need to think about this.
One of the major challenges faced by the region is the sustainable management of fisheries. Tuna is especially abundant in the Pacific, with a
of the world’s catch caught in the Pacific Islands, valued at EUR 2 billion. Are we protecting their catch? Are we making sure that the benefits of their catches go back to their people? I do not know. Maybe the Commission should look at this. I do not know exactly where their catch is going. They should not be as poor as they are if they are getting EUR 2 billion for those catches.
My report stresses that any encouragement of tourism in the region must go hand-in-hand with increased local ownership of the tourist sector. I stress that in the majority of cases only the richer countries, with more developed infrastructure and more frequent air connections, attract significant numbers of tourists each year. In these cases, for the poorer countries, development assistance must continue to be used to finance infrastructure and to encourage sustainable tourism. In this regard, why have we not looked at creating a Pacific hub, a regional hub? We could create a hub, like Dubai. After all, what was Dubai? Dubai was full of sand 20 years ago! Today it is a hub for regional air transport. Sheik Maktoum and those intelligent Arabs have created something quite extraordinary. Why do we not that in the Pacific for these islanders?
My report recommends that the more developed Pacific island countries should continue to deliver local processing, thereby creating more employment. They should explore the possibility of the European Investment Bank giving soft loans to small and medium-sized enterprises, to add value to their exports."@en1
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