Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-06-11-Speech-1-056-000"
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"en.20120611.18.1-056-000"2
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"Mr President, first of all, an answer to some technical questions which have been asked. There was a question on whether food security NGIs were included in the scoping. The answer is yes, food security is covered by the EU rules on sanitary and phytosanitary issues which themselves are part of all EU free trade negotiations. The same applies to geographical indications; specifics, of course, will be addressed during the negotiations. There was also a question on mutual recognition of organic produce. Recognition of EU organic foods in Japan is one of the early deliveries on our NTB list so this problem is being rectified and will be solved in practice before any negotiations start.
My last remark, Mr President: we are now discussing whether or not we should start the negotiations with Japan; we are not discussing whether or not we agree with the result of a negotiation because there is not a negotiation yet. It is very extraordinary to ask a country you want to negotiate with, and that wants to negotiate with us, to deliver on a certain number of topics before you even start negotiations. Normally, you do not do that; it is quite extraordinary. What you cannot ask the Commission is to say look, now first deliver; take another year and then we will see whether or not we agree to even speak to you. That you cannot do; that we will not do, so we are going to go forward with our proposals to the Council and then, of course, it is up to the Council to decide on the negotiating mandate.
The second set of questions are about the role of INTA in these negotiations. I believe that in the case of Japan, the European Parliament has been duly informed that we were about to propose that the Council authorise negotiations, first orally by myself and Director-General Demarty in the INTA meetings of April and May respectively, and secondly in writing by Jean-Luc Demarty through an e-mail to INTA Chair Moreira on 17 April. Also, Director Mauro Petriccione debriefed the Japan monitoring group of INTA in May on the state of play of the scoping exercise and the European Parliament now has an opportunity to give its views on this resolution. The Commission has fully lived up to the commitments under the framework agreements. By the way, the INTA members have received the result of the scoping exercise but it is a restricted document which cannot be sent to all Members of Parliament.
There were also a number of questions requesting that the Commission should wait to start the negotiations until the European Parliament has formally taken a decision. The procedure is that we have to propose negotiating directives to the Council. The Council has to decide upon those negotiating directives. It is up to the Council to decide when they give such a mandate to the Commission.
I hope that you are able to come forward with a detailed resolution before the Council takes its decision. Of course the agenda is within your hands, within the hands of INTA and the plenary, but I would suggest that if you could come up with a resolution by September, then probably you would be in time to influence the debate in the Council.
Questions were also asked on whether Parliament should not be part of the negotiating delegation. I am against that: Parliament is not made to negotiate; Parliament is made to debate, to come forward with resolutions, to make proposals and ultimately to vote on the ratification of the free trade agreement that will possibly be concluded with Japan. That is what is in the Treaty and I think it is very important for all institutions that we keep to that Treaty.
Nowhere, by the way, does a parliament negotiate free trade agreements. You will, of course, make reference to the United States, where the government can only go forward when there is a fast track, but when you look at the practice, you will see that, unless there is a fast track, the American Congress does not conclude the agreements. The whole idea that you have an agreement and then start introducing amendments can never work; it simply does not work, it has never done so in the past and will not do so in the future either.
Now, on the whole topic of the scoping and how we go forward, I believe there are two very important points. In the scoping, I think we have covered all items which you would normally cover in a broad free trade agreement. On top of that, we have asked the Japanese to give a solution on a number of non-tariff barriers. Recently, they have come forward with a proposal on those non-tariff barriers and we have observed that this is a satisfactory answer – provided, of course, that it is honoured in practice. That is why I have also told the Foreign Affairs Council on trade that our idea is to come forward with negotiating directives whereby we give the Japanese a year to deliver on these promises. They cannot deliver immediately because legislative and administrative instructions have to be changed. On the other hand, it does not make sense to negotiate if they do not deliver.
Japan being a friendly country – a democracy by the way, one of the biggest in the world – I think you realise that politically, it does not make sense to tell them: look, now deliver on all of these non-tariff barriers and then within a year we will see whether or not we will start negotiations. You do not do that. The only right political approach is to say OK, we have started negotiations, those are the promises which you have been making, we are going to check this within a year and then we will make our decision on whether or not we continue with the negotiations.
A second and very important element which we have very clearly stated is that whenever we do something about tariffs, they should do something about the NTBs so that there should be a parallel in the approach of dismantling trade impediments: on the one hand, tariffs, and, on the other hand, the non-tariff barriers. We will keep to that very strict parallelism also in negotiations."@en1
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