Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-04-Speech-3-176"
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"en.20080604.22.3-176"2
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Mr President, Commissioner, development cooperation and trade are usually the most important external forces able to contribute to a country’s development. Non-reciprocal tariff preferences for developing countries are an important and internationally recognised instrument that the European Union has been using for many years.
Fourthly, securing democratic and parliamentary control of the implementation and adaptation, if necessary, of the regulation currently in force. I should like to say here that I welcome the Commission’s inclusion of Parliament in the consultation process at this point in time, but that Parliament will have to make joint decisions on these issues in future on a fairly regular basis. I assume from this that the Commission will take our amendments seriously this time instead of largely ignoring them, as in the case of the own-initiative report on reform two years ago.
A comment on the GSP+ incentive scheme: I think it is extremely important when evaluating the human rights situation and good governance – not just in trade relations – that the various countries are not measured by different standards. At the same time it is perfectly clear, however, that a rash abandonment of trade preferences can have disastrous consequences for the population of a developing country and even for the human rights situation there, too.
The decision on how well or badly the international agreements specified in the annex to the current regulation are actually implemented and whether preferences should be abandoned if necessary should therefore be tested extremely carefully.
I should like to support Amendment 37 tabled here, which reminds us that every possibility should be checked so that the countries not among the least-developed and that have not signed any economic partnership agreement can enjoy a new framework for trade, which offers trade preferences that at least correspond to those of the Cotonou Agreement.
In this connection I should like to thank all the shadow rapporteurs and the Committee on Development – and Mr Kaczmarek over there – for their cooperation and willingness to compromise. The Committee on International Trade has been able to accept this report unanimously, including the contents of the opinion of the Committee on Development.
There has been extensive agreement with the Council and the Commission – we also had regular debates on this – and I therefore hope that the regulation can enter into force as planned in good time and that there will be no disparities between the current and the new preference period.
Three kinds of arrangements are currently in force. Firstly, the general arrangement that applies to all beneficiary countries.
Secondly, the GSP+ incentive scheme, which provides additional benefits for countries implementing certain international standards in human and labour rights, environmental protection, the fight against drugs, and good governance.
Thirdly, the special arrangement for the least-developed countries, which in theory offers them duty-free and quota-free access to the EU internal market for ‘Everything But Arms’. My personal view here is that it is absolutely fatal that that there is still no legally binding regulation banning exports of arms from the European Union to these countries.
All the trade preferences in the world are of no use if violent conflicts destroy the basis of a functioning national economy.
The report before us contains improvements to the Commission proposal for the GSP system for the period from January 2009 to December 2011 under the following items:
Firstly, improvement in application and effectiveness. This also includes shortening the amendment and test deadlines from three-year to one-year periods.
Secondly, developing rules for a reform process in which the beneficiaries are included as appropriate.
Thirdly, coherence with the multilateral framework of the WTO and thereby, of course, with the objectives of the Doha Development Round. Ranking among these, along with the necessary impact assessment of the development capability of the EU’s trade policy instruments, is, in first place, the fact that reform of the EU’s rules of origin is taking place at the same time as the new GSP scheme comes into force, and secondly and above all, that rules on the requirements for beneficiary countries are being improved. I am therefore thinking, for example, of the possibility of inter-regional and cross-regional cumulation. This means that a product produced in a regional but cross-border production process does not fall short of GSP acceptance on the basis of meaningless country of origin rules."@en1
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