Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-051"
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"en.20070522.7.2-051"2
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".
Mr President, before turning to the substance of this report, I should like to thank my shadow rapporteurs for their cooperation in the preparation of the report and in particular to thank the Commission’s Trade DG and Development DG, which, I am pleased to say, have been very keen to engage with Parliament on this particular issue. Finally, I should like to thank Pelayo Castro Zuzuarregui, the Parliament official I worked with on this report. He is leaving us for a year – we hope it is only for a year! – to work for the Spanish Prime Minister. I have worked with him on this report and a number of other reports; I have found it intellectually stimulating to be in his company and I wish him well.
On the substance, Aid for Trade is a vital tool for linking developing countries to the global economy. However, I want to stress at the outset that it is not a substitute for the Doha Development Round, but a complement to it. It is clear that liberalising markets is not sufficient in itself to link developing countries into the global economy. You just have to look at the experience of the last 40 years: LDCs have seen their share of world trade almost halved from 1.9% to 1%, and this is despite tariff reductions following the Uruguay Round and other tariff reductions and recent efforts such as the European Everything but Arms scheme, which gives duty-free and quota-free access to developing countries. Therefore, liberalisation, which I would argue is important, clearly of itself has not been enough to engage the developing countries fully in the global economy.
I also do not argue – and I want to make this clear – that Aid for Trade is of itself a panacea. However, it is quite clear that there is now a growing consensus on the benefits that Aid for Trade might bring. The WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December 2005 set out an ambitious work programme for Aid for Trade and called for more assistance to help developing countries into the global economy. This followed Mr Barroso’s commitment at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles of GBP 1 billion of European Union money and GBP 1 billion of Member States’ money to assist in the Aid for Trade budget line.
While this is all most welcome and sounded quite dramatic at the time of the announcement, we have to realise that the increases are quite modest in substance: the European Union’s contribution will increase from a base of around EUR 850 million at the moment to EUR 1 billion, while the Member States – if they deliver – will go from EUR 300 million to a EUR 1 billion.
Last October the General Affairs Council called for a trade strategy to map out how we fulfil these pledges. My report indicates some of the key points I hope we will see in that strategy. Firstly, in relation to the scope of Aid for Trade, I want the measurement of the Barroso billion to be against the existing base, which has two categories: one being trade policy and regulation, the other trade development. However, I welcome the fact that the WTO task force has added three further categories: trade-related adjustment, trade-related infrastructure and productive capacity. These are vital aspects of the Aid for Trade agenda and I hope additional resources can be found to assist developing countries to deal with such matters as the phasing-out of preferences, reductions in government revenue as a result of tariffs being lowered, or help in adjusting to new competitive pressures due to regionalisation, such as EPAs.
My report argues that Aid for Trade should be demand-led and country-owned. In this context, the WTO’s enhanced integrated framework should become the key diagnostic tool for developing countries, assisting them to identify where Aid for Trade can bring maximum benefits. Within developing countries we must also ensure that the private sector and civil society are engaged with the process. While Aid for Trade undoubtedly represents a different approach to general development aid, it should, in my opinion, be based on the same fundamental principles of poverty reduction and sustainable development, and our main point of reference should continue to be the Millennium Development Goals.
I am pleased that much of what we called for in this report was reflected in the Commission’s communication published in April, and, perhaps naively, I like to believe that was part of the intense interaction between the Commission’s DGs and the European Parliament. I hope that, when the final joint EU trade strategy is adopted over the summer, it will also be reflected in that strategy document.
I have called in my report today for biannual reporting back to Parliament so that we can check that the Member States and the Commission have delivered on both the quality and quantity of the aid that they are promising. All institutions so far have shown a willingness to deliver collectively on what I believe is an important strategy that can make an important, if modest, contribution to linking the poorest countries of the world into the global trading system."@en1
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