Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-24-Speech-3-165"
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".
Mr President, Mr Désir’s own-initiative report makes a number of recommendations that are quite close to the spirit in which we are approaching the WTO ministerial conference in Doha.
Like you, we are also opposed to immediate implementation and to trade sanctions. There must be more room for trade compensation. Personally speaking, I have greater reservations about your suggestion to replace sanctions with fines. My fear is that financial penalties would not resolve the imbalance between rich and poor countries, and might, to some extent, even allow the rich countries to buy off their breaches of obligations.
With regard to the transparency of the panels, we are also in favour of opening up the hearings of the appeals body to the public. Let us remember, however, just between ourselves, that the developing countries have very firmly held positions on this point, which we do not share.
Where the relationship with other rules of international law is concerned, we must ensure greater coherence and prevent conflict between trade and non-trade rules. This must apply to the very substance of the commitments in question.
As to the issue of revising the agreement on intellectual property, which you consider to be necessary, I do not think that a thorough revision would be appropriate. If we take the examples of access to medicines or of the patenting of living organisms, the agreement provides sufficient latitude to establish an intellectual property system that responds to the concerns expressed by developing countries. It is the task of the members of the WTO to interpret and clarify this flexibility, and we feel that it is better to do so by means of discussion or negotiation than to leave this task to panels. This is the basis of our position in Geneva, which I mentioned in the previous debate.
Mrs Auroi, the issue of compatibility between the agreement on intellectual property and the convention on biodiversity is one of the points that we wish to see clarified in these negotiations.
With regard to the incentive measures to ensure compliance with basic standards in the field of employment law, we agree with your wish, Mr Désir, to highlight the importance of strengthening the ILO and this is why your suggestion to create a multilateral agreement within the WTO does not fill us with any great enthusiasm. As for the incentive measures to ensure compliance with basic social standards, I would say that we must not undermine the influence of the International Labour Organisation. This is not a weak institution that the WTO must provide with a dynamism that it would not otherwise have. We must instead work on improving the ILO’s profile.
Lastly, with regard to creating a parliamentary forum within the WTO, a proposal that, as I stated in the previous debate, we have always supported, I shall conclude briefly by saying that we shall make use of the guidelines that Parliament has laid down for this set of work, to which we can now add your report, Mr Désir. I would say that, as this afternoon's debate has shown, the Commission’s political line, approved and implemented by the Council, is also coherent with the position of this House.
You would like to see the developing countries integrated into world trade, which is an objective that we share. You emphasise the importance of the WTO addressing the public’s concerns, over and above the traditional issues of access to the markets or of customs tariffs. We also share this objective and feel, as you do, that rapid economic change and the effects of globalisation must be managed.
The fact is that progress has already been made on many of your suggestions, specifically with regard to follow-ups with technical assistance or councils for developing countries in WTO negotiations. The European Union, for example, is responsible for establishing the ACP countries’ Centre in Geneva, which will enable these countries to better coordinate their position and consequently exert greater influence within the WTO. It is the European Union that insisted on streamlining meetings in Geneva and on making the participation of members who do not have a representation in the WTO easier.
I am giving these two examples, to which one could add the efforts made to encourage the accession of a number of countries – and in Doha, an LDC, the island of Vanuatu, will sit side by side with China and Taiwan, for example – not to suggest that the situation is perfect or that nothing remains to be done, but in order to ensure that the debate on the proposals for reform is held on the basis of a full and up-to-date knowledge of the current situation. On this subject, I should like to make a small correction to a point of fact that appears in your explanatory statement, Mr Désir, concerning hormone-treated beef. Contrary to what you state, the European Union has not been condemned for banning hormones in cattle breeding. The WTO has explicitly recognised the right in this affair of each member to set its own level of protection. The Union was condemned because, at the time, it did not supply the necessary scientific evidence to justify such a ban.
I have a few other different interpretations, or rather differences of opinion, concerning some of your comments or suggestions. You mention the crisis of democratic legitimacy, which other speakers have taken up. I disagree with the content of this criticism. Admittedly, the system could be improved: it must be made more open and the developing countries must be more fully integrated. The challenge of reconciling our ‘civil society’ agenda with our ‘development’ agenda is indeed formidable and your report, furthermore, attests to some of these difficulties, in that, for some subjects, you propose both external transparency and fundamental social standards. We know very well that, where these two matters are concerned, our sensitivity to the positions of the developing countries forces us to severely limit our ambitions: consequently, our own position is not entirely free from contradiction, as your report highlights.
Nevertheless, calling the current situation a serious crisis of democratic legitimacy strikes me as somewhat excessive. As far as I am aware, the Marrakech Agreement was not only adopted by the Member State governments, but was also ratified both by the national parliaments and by your House. In other words, the Marrakech Agreement has been ratified by the European Parliament.
With regard to your statement that decision making within the WTO is the sole preserve of the richer nations, I would say that, although this may once have been true, it is increasingly less the case in an organisation of more than 140 members and, in which, small discussion groups are inevitable in its day-to-day work. We are trying to ensure that these meetings include both rich and poor countries and that they guarantee a representative mix both in terms of geography and in terms of stages of development. It may be the case that these informal groups make it easier to reach consensus, but they never, as we all know, take decisions.
Many preparatory meetings of this type have taken place over these last few weeks, for example, the ministerial mini-meeting in Mexico at the end of August, the Europe-Asia meeting in Hanoi in mid-September, the Europe-Africa meeting in Nairobi in mid-October and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting at the weekend. I would also add that, in terms of the method of preparation, the lesson of Seattle has been learned and that the participating delegations are larger and better informed about the issues you have raised.
With regard to dispute settlement, an issue you have also addressed, I would make three comments. First of all, let us not forget that the main objective of the mechanism for settling disputes is the effective and disciplined implementation of commitments that have been freely negotiated and accepted. This is what a member of the WTO hopes to obtain when it resorts to the dispute settlement procedure."@en1
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