Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-10-Speech-3-694"
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"Mr President, first of all, with respect to the procedure – because a lot of questions have been asked about that – obviously, this will be the first time that Parliament has had to give its consent on the agreement as such and also the first time that the safeguard clauses will have to be adopted by codecision. This has consequences, I think, for the relationship between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
Incidentally, I would like to add, for Mr Belet’s benefit, that there is a small mathematical error in the comparison he quoted, where he stated that South Korea exports 15 times as many cars to Europe as Europe exports to South Korea. This may be related to policies that I was recently involved in in Belgium. The present figures are that 37 000 cars are being exported to South Korea and approximately 440 000 imported from there.
What is more, your line of reasoning is also faulty, as you are presuming that the two markets are the same size. If you compare the two markets, you have to observe that the South Korean market, of course, is much smaller than the European one, and that means that you are comparing apples with oranges.
When it comes to market penetration, we actually send the same percentage from Europe to South Korea as comes the other way: approximately 3 to 4%. This is what really matters.
Something that I think is actually far more important in estimating the market situation is the fact that South Korean manufacturers have recently opened major factories in Europe, namely in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia, which will be capable of producing around half a million cars between them on an annual basis, so the reality is perhaps that, in future, Korean cars produced in Europe will largely, in effect, be the cars that reach the market here. What you have there is a clear shift, and so what you actually see across the car market as a whole is that there is a displacement taking place towards the major markets where, in the end, cars can be bought and sold.
As a final thought about what is, in any event, a particularly regrettable situation at Opel – for which, in my view, a solution is ultimately on the way – I think that one must not overlook the fact that the manufacturers follow the customers, and not the other way around, and that that is one of the most important reasons for specific policy decisions in a shrinking European car market also faced with a number of car makers who have found themselves in a difficult financial situation.
I will, perhaps, make one last comment about the tension between bilateral and multilateral negotiations, an issue also raised by Mr Moreira. Negotiations based on the Doha Round have been taking place since 2001, which is now nine years, and there is still no solution to the impasse. I am a great supporter of multilateralism, and I think that we do also need to bring a positive conclusion to Doha, specifically retaining the development elements that it contains. I believe this also because its multilateral framework also provides the greatest legal certainty for international trade. I do think, however, that while we await the conclusion of the Doha Round – which I hope will be in 2010 or at the latest in early 2011 – we cannot sit on our hands in relation to the bilateral front.
What I think is very important is that, when it comes to bilateral arrangements, we only conclude agreements that go further than Doha, so as not to undermine what is decided in the Doha Round, insofar as we are setting higher criteria. That, too, explains the drawing up of the free trade agreement with South Korea. It is not, in my opinion, of such a nature that it undermines multilateralism. If we were to undercut the multilateral track, then that would indeed be the effect, but that is not the intention, nor will it be in the forthcoming negotiations.
The safeguard clauses are a proposal. The Commission adopted its proposal yesterday and it will be presented to the Council and Parliament very soon. Obviously, then, it will be a codecision procedure, so I do not understand the many remarks in which you put questions and express doubts about safeguard clauses. There will only be safeguard clauses that get your agreement, because it is codecision: it is as simple as that. So you should not be so worried about it and about ratification by Parliament.
That implies, of course, that there will be a debate in your committee. I already said during the hearing that I am not going to make a proposal for an early, provisional application unless Parliament has itself pronounced on the agreement, whether as formal ratification by Parliament or by some other procedure that we can establish between the INTA Committee and the Commission. That remains open and can be discussed, but in any case, Parliament will have the opportunity to give its political judgment on the agreement before any proposals for early application are put forward.
Another question is whether this is a mixed agreement or an agreement which is only about Community competences. The Legal Service is still preparing an opinion on that, but we cannot rule out the possibility that in the end, we will have to consider this a mixed agreement, which implies that all the national parliaments will also have to ratify it, and which could also have – in reply to Niccolò Rinaldi’s question – consequences for the voting procedure in Council.
So much for the procedure: you will have every opportunity to express yourselves, and we will scrupulously respect this – if we did not do so, I think we would get into trouble!
I will now deal with the issue of Opel. I understand that it is not just in Belgium, but also in other Member States, that the Opel issue arises. What I do not understand, however, is when people say ‘look, there is a direct link between the free trade agreement with South Korea and the fact that there are plans to make closures at Opel in Europe’.
Opel announced back at the beginning of 2009 that it intended to cut capacity in Europe by 20%. It is true that this can be done in such a way that, ultimately, all the factories remain open, on condition, of course, that Opel also views it as possible, from a business point of view.
It is also the case, however, that the decision to actually produce the SUVs in South Korea came, at any event, after the agreement with Magna had been reached but before the conclusion of the negotiations over a free trade agreement between the European Union and South Korea. The assertion made by both Mr Belet and Mrs Van Brempt thus does not fit in with the timeline. The agreement with South Korea was only concluded afterwards.
It is possible, in fact, to argue the opposite case, I would have thought, in other words, that some Member States only agreed to a free trade agreement with South Korea on condition that they knew what was going to happen with Opel. I think, in fact, that you have to go with this opposite case if you look at the correct timeline as it developed in practice."@en1
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