Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-29-Speech-4-031"
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"en.20050929.3.4-031"2
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"Mr President, the question at issue here is the political management of globalisation, so that we can encourage the orderly development of trade and avoid market disruption. A balance must be struck between EU textile protectionism, which costs an extra EUR 270 per year for each four-person household, and complete market distortion. It is a difficult tightrope. Yes, as politicians we are operating in the sphere of practical politics and not pure economic theory.
We cannot have a situation such as that which arose this summer, when the sale of 80 to 90 million items of clothing and textiles was blocked in the warehouses of Europe, paralysing European businesses and damaging their trade relations with Chinese counterparts. We need more flexibility to manage unforeseen changes in global trade.
That involves setting up a level playing field where everyone plays by the same rules. It is essential that the Commission does its utmost to enforce the terms of trade agreements where exporters to the EU comply with international norms on workers' rights and environmental standards. The Chinese have the advantage of cheap labour and sometimes, by our standards, questionable labour standards. But let us be honest, the textile industry in Europe is one of the lowest paid too and the more educated our workforce becomes, the less inclined they are to take up the sewing machine. There are a lot of circles to be squared here, less revisionism about what conditions were like in our industries years ago, and we need an honest, open dialogue.
There is tension, even within the EU, as to how it should be handled. Since the setting-up of import quotas, Chinese textile exports to the EU are allowed to grow by between 8 and 12% for the next couple of years. The Spanish and the French have one view on how this should be handled, the British, Irish and the Nordic countries another view. Those speaking on behalf of retailers and consumers take one view, whereas those in relation to producers have another view. My own government has in recent years changed its policy and now actively encourages and assists Irish companies to source in the People's Republic of China and elsewhere. We have no choice since we joined the European Union and lost our advantage to the Euro-Mediterranean producers.
We need open and honest dialogue and need to look to ourselves internally first."@en1
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