Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-09-Speech-2-501"
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"en.20100309.27.2-501"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, shortly after this Parliament was voted in, we were immediately faced with the issue of suspending the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP+), in particular, with regard to the application or nonapplication of this mechanism to Sri Lanka and Colombia.
In the first case, we witnessed a series of errors, some serious, being committed by Sri Lanka, a country which has the extenuating circumstance of having emerged from a very long civil war against a terrible terrorist organisation. The Commission, in my view, acted rather hastily in this case, and this quickly gave rise to the proposal to suspend the GSP+. However, Sri Lanka had no ‘guardians’, if we may call them such, in the Council, and so the decision was taken. As for the European Parliament, it had no role to play: nobody asked our opinion.
In the second case, we have a country that has to combat terrible internal guerrilla warfare and where there have been serious human rights violations, including the frequent killings of trade unionists. Up to now, the Commission has not expressed an opinion on the timeliness of opening an investigation and, in actual fact, it has continued on the path of the free trade agreement, which I personally am in agreement with. In the Council, we know that there are governments that are very active in protecting the interests of the Colombian authorities and, once again, the role of the European Parliament has been nonexistent: nobody has requested Parliament’s opinion, despite the fact that it has to listen to the opinions of the others nearly every day.
In both cases, we have had no impact studies on the occupational and economic consequences of the possible suspension. However, among all the inconsistencies, there is one common element: the marginal role of the European Parliament. Yet these decisions are eminently political, not technical, and I find this unacceptable. We therefore need a new regulation, taking advantage of the end of 2011 expiry date, and I believe that these two concrete examples demonstrate this. In the meantime, however, it would also be beneficial to discuss what has been happening in recent months in these particular countries.
For example, it would be interesting to know what threshold of human rights violations the Commission believes must be surpassed before it launches an investigation in Colombia or in another country, and what concrete steps the Sri Lankan Government should take, for example, such as suspending martial law, to halt the suspension.
Commissioner, we are asking for the following: a new proposal, if possible by June; clear criteria regarding the eligibility of beneficiary countries, bearing in mind that the GSP is a development instrument and that we have some countries on the list that are frankly not really developing countries; the signing and application of the 27 International Labour Organisation conventions in the beneficiary countries; transparency of the rules on their conduct; a system by which to assess the impact of the GSP; and a communication to Parliament. As Mr Martin also mentioned, Parliament must have a full role in the event of suspension, since this is, I repeat, an eminently political decision."@en1
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