Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-18-Speech-1-209"
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"en.20080218.27.1-209"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, to be quite frank, I am glad that the reform of the trade defence instruments proposed by you has failed. You tried to push the TDI reform forward by taking up this reform in the Global Europe Strategy. Even if we assume that this reform would have been useful, it is quite clear that we need to strengthen these instruments where they are going to be beneficial, rather than abolishing them altogether. However, this latter aim was the purpose of your communication of November 2007. You bypassed the large majority who were in favour of retaining the existing system, with only a small minority being against its retention and in favour of progressively eroding it. The way in which the reform project has ground to a halt at Commission level shows that the large majority of Member States and many of your own colleagues considered these proposals to be unacceptable and that they were actually geared towards a small but very vocal lobby.
Who would have benefited from this reform? Not the European workforce, who are at risk of losing their jobs because major companies have been able to make use of your much-vaunted comparative advantages in the emerging economies. Not the workers in those countries, who have to endure unacceptable working conditions, and certainly not European businesses – and I speak as an entrepreneur – which conduct their production operations in accordance with the relevant European legislation and have no plans to send their profits soaring by exploiting poor environmental and social standards in certain third countries.
These proposals had nothing to do with fairness and justice in global trade relations and between companies. In fact, the main beneficiaries would have been the major importers, who are naturally annoyed by any attempt to curb their abusive practices. The beneficiaries would have been the major wholesalers and distributors who ride roughshod over consumers' interests and who prefer to draw a veil over the fact that consumers are also workers, citizens and taxpayers. The beneficiaries would be those in the EU whose main concern is their profits, forgetting that the European Union is supposed to be developed, first and foremost, on mutual solidarity and support.
The TDI system that we have in place is not perfect, but it is the one which works best compared with others around the world. Incidentally, that is not just my opinion; you – the Commission – undertook a study in 2006 which makes this same point. We should wait and see what happens in terms of developments in the World Trade Organisation before we introduce any new reforms in this area. Such a reform would have to consider what our trading partners are doing rather than unilaterally giving up any legal mechanisms to protect ourselves from dumping: legal mechanisms, incidentally, which are based on an internationally agreed set of rules.
Regrettably, I must add that I cannot endorse the Commission's conduct in the application of the TDIs in 2007. Many Member States and other stakeholders have protested that the changes proposed by the Commission were put into effect before the Council and Parliament had the chance to reach an opinion on them. DG Trade has, on its own initiative, quite simply suspended some of the established principles of interinstitutional cooperation in recent months. As a result, absolutely no cases have been taken up. I can only hope, and I would ask you to ensure, that this style of cooperation between the Commission and Parliament does not continue in future. I would also ask you to bring your key proposals on the framework for the TDIs before the Committee on International Trade and have serious discussions with Parliament before they are put into effect."@en1
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