Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-277"
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"en.20050511.21.3-277"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to begin by thanking everybody who has contributed to enriching this report, which we will vote on tomorrow, for their cooperation. This report provides a balance between, on the one hand, this Parliament's full support for the defence of the Union’s interests in the negotiations under way and, on the other, its ambition to ensure that this development round ends in success, which would mean the full integration and participation of the developing countries in the world economy.
With regard to services, during this month revised quality offers should be presented and, with regard to services relating to the basic needs of the citizens, I do not believe that the developing countries should be required to liberalise them.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the success of the Round, the legitimacy and the credibility of the WTO, also undoubtedly depend on civil society feeling the benefits provided by international trade.
In a process in which, since Seattle, there is great social interest, it appears essential to emphasise the role that democratic Parliaments must play as an expression of the citizens’ views within international fora such as the WTO and, in the case of this Parliament, as a body responsible for democratic control of the Union’s trade policy and a future co-legislator in this field, once the European Constitution enters into force. If you will allow me to refer briefly to a highly topical issue, this is an additional argument to add to the long list of advances represented by this Constitution and which justify a European vote in favour, both in France and in other countries.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, said, ‘Traveller, there is no path. The path is made by walking’. And we are half way between Geneva and Hong Kong; between nostalgia for what is being left behind and eagerness to reach our destination. We must go to Hong Kong with an ambitious and balanced proposal which civil society and all the member countries of the WTO can relate to and which will bring results they are satisfied with.
Through this report, this House intends to send a decisive political message of support for the progress of the negotiations, in which the Commission is playing an essential role, reiterating our commitment to the WTO and its multilateral system of trade which, undoubtedly, is the best mechanism for promoting fair trade, demonstrating solidarity, in a way that benefits everybody. This message comes at a very appropriate time, since the Doha programme is at a crossroads, it is at a key stage and must not be allowed to move backwards.
Following the failure of the Ministerial Conference in Cancún, the agreement of 1 August 2004 is of unquestionable political importance, since it put the negotiations on the right track, and furthermore recognises the need fully to integrate the developing countries into the world economy. This is just a road map, however. The success of the negotiations depends on the firm political will of all the parties to reach a fundamental agreement in Hong Kong.
We must go there with an ambitious and balanced proposal in the different areas covered by the agreement: development, agriculture, industrial products (NAMAs), services and facilitation of trade, without forgetting the need to put development at the forefront of the negotiations, despite the fact that agriculture is unquestionably the motor for them. In pursuit of this objective, concrete and specific commitments must be achieved with dates and time limits by means of a transparent, effective and inclusive process of negotiation, in which all the member countries of the WTO participate fully.
In the field of development, we must ensure that the negotiations deal with the problems linked to poverty, malnutrition and hunger in the world, with a view to reducing them by half by 2015, as laid down in the Millennium Declaration, by means of a closer relationship between the WTO and the other international organisations.
It would also be useful for the Commission to produce proposals to establish commercial integration mechanisms for developing countries to compensate for any possible losses resulting from trade liberalisation.
Progress in the fields of technical assistance and the creation of capacity and the promotion of South-South trade are also of particular importance in terms of guaranteeing the integration of developing countries into the world economy and promoting their export capacity.
In agriculture, the members of the WTO must work in a balanced fashion in relation to the three pillars — export subsidies, internal aid and access to the market — in order to produce detailed negotiation guidelines for Hong Kong and a parallel disarming by all the members of the WTO.
With regard to access to the markets for non-agricultural products, the NAMAs, the way must be opened up to flexibility and the application of non-reciprocity for developing countries, applying the principle of special and differentiated treatment to them."@en1
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