Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-28-Speech-3-135"
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"en.20071128.17.3-135"2
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"Mr President, my Group recommends, as others have said, that, in the interests of credibility and authenticity, Parliament establish a position which reflects what was unanimously agreed at our Joint Parliamentary Assembly and was reflected by the Kigali Declaration. I believe that it is both a moderate and balanced document, which represents lengthy and successful negotiations between all our political groups – including, of course, Mr Sturdy’s political group, as he made reference to it – and with the ACP.
I have never encountered the kind of pressure that the ACP has faced during these negotiations, especially as they are threatened with being severely disadvantaged by Europe’s GSP tariff regime. It is that threat that has caused the emergence of new regional groupings, and we will possibly see bilateral agreements, for example with Côte d’Ivoire. These subgroupings which the Commissioner has talked about are not something that we should see as a great achievement, but rather as something that threatens regional integration and is causing massive regional tensions amongst the ACP.
Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar and Comoros have agreed a subregional EPA; West and Central Africa have put forward no market access offers and so face GSP. South Africa and Namibia, in the SADC, seem to have reached a red line they cannot cross and are being asked to include most-favoured-nation clauses which would oblige them to give the EU any market access they may concede in the future to other countries. The Pacific, of course, is also not experiencing the best of negotiations and it is unlikely that any countries other than Fiji and Papua New Guinea will sign or initial.
Intransigence and a lack of flexibility have clearly alienated the ACP, especially when they realise that the Commission is pushing for agreements from the ACP that it has not sought from others, and colleagues from the Committee on International Trade will confirm this. Both technically and politically, the ‘goods-only’ agreement has proved impossible, even for the Caribbean. The capacity of the Caribbean is greater than of any other region. Only last week, they said that what was on offer was simply not tenable for them.
Surely, the Commission must now step back, take the pressure off and reassess how it can ensure that we do not do the unthinkable and throw the non-LDCs to the wolves. The willingness of both sides to continue negotiation in good faith should be communicated to the WTO in order to avoid the trade disruption which failure to sign an EPA by the deadline would cause.
The EU must make the required internal legislative changes to permit the continuation of the current trading arrangements. Subsequently, the EU and the ACP could work together to ensure that there is no opposition or challenge in the WTO.
We, as Members of the European Parliament, simply cannot return to our constituencies, wherever they are in Europe, and say that vulnerable ACP states are going to be treated in this way when they are already agreeing amongst themselves that they are being asked to agree economic partnerships that they see as being harmful to their economic interests."@en1
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