Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-24-Speech-3-522"
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"en.20101124.27.3-522"2
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"Mr President, Mr De Gucht, ladies and gentlemen, we have already discussed in the previous debate the need to put trade policy into a broader context and to comply with, protect and implement international law. One of the legal frameworks which the European Union and its Member States form part of is the World Trade Organisation (WTO). However, my group has been critical of its shortcomings right from the beginning and particularly in this respect. The Commission is under an obligation to protect European companies and their employees from unfair competition using the anti-dumping instruments permitted by the WTO. In concrete terms, this is about selling products below cost. We are calling on you to expand the definition of production costs and to apply this definition multilaterally, because social dumping and environmental dumping, as other speakers have already emphasised, cause production costs to fall. The result is unfair competitive pressure on European companies, which may even put their survival at risk. We are threatened by a global downward spiral, which we cannot and will not accept.
Against this background, we must continue to work on defining objective criteria for the use of the instruments, because they currently have the reputation among countries both outside and inside the European Union of being arbitrary. One reason for this is the lack of a functioning appeal body. Some small and medium-sized businesses inside the EU are complaining that their interests are seen as less important than those of larger companies when the anti-dumping instruments are used. This applies particularly to the global division of labour for manufacturing firms in Europe. These companies are questioning whether the Commission still has a clear overview of the consequences of the measures it imposes. I would like the Commission to address this using the specific example of case AD549, with the keyword being the European Saint-Gobain group. The Commission’s decision on this company may well help to support it, but from our perspective it also puts many jobs in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies at risk. My question to you, Mr De Gucht, is: Were adequate investigations carried out, were there appropriate opportunities to object, were these opportunities used and were the small and medium-sized companies given enough information about the procedures?"@en1
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