Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-21-Speech-4-020"

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"en.20080221.3.4-020"2
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"Madam President, the European Commission is so concerned with cohesion between the Member States and within the Member States that 350 billion euros have been allocated to it between now and 2013. A Green Paper is also in the offing because, in Brussels, whenever a problem arises a paper has to be written on it. There certainly is a problem of cohesion between western Europe and eastern Europe, the Europe of villages and the Europe of cities, or the Europe of the upmarket districts and the Europe of working-class neighbourhoods. But whose fault is it? Who depopulated villages where they tended vines and reared cattle, Madam President, in Greece, where they produced tobacco, cotton and olive oil? Who, and which policies, took away thousands of post offices in Sweden, Germany and France? Who closed down rural train stations, railways and maternity homes? In ports, is it the wind destroying fishing craft, fishermen’s livelihoods, small businesses and shipyards? Is it the wolves in the Pyrenees or the Alps that are eating up the shepherds, or lamb imported from New Zealand? We all know the answer: it was the international trade policy conducted by the Commission through GATT agreement and the WTO that has been leading to the closure of 90 farms a day in Spain and France for the last 20 years. It was the dogmatic removal of customs protection that destroyed industrial balances beneath a wave of imports. Now, in order to establish cohesion, first we have to establish coherence between policies. We cannot have one policy in Cotonou for the ACP states and then destroy this policy in Geneva over the banana trade. We cannot have a Community preference for rural produce between 1962 and 1986 and then destroy all this with free trade at the Uruguay or Doha Rounds. Cohesion therefore requires a certain amount of coherence between choices. Commissioner, either we build Europe or we build the world. Either we focus on social tasks, or we focus on the world."@en1

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