Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-30-Speech-3-041"
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"en.20051130.10.3-041"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, in the
the WTO announced what it called a ‘development round’. If, though, you peek behind the facade of fine words, the current WTO round of negotiations turns out – yet again, alas – to be all about access to markets. That is apparent most of all from the great pressure that the industrialised nations bring to bear in order to secure a market opening for non-agricultural products and services, making this a precondition for progress in negotiations on the agricultural sector. All they offer the developing countries in return is a vague and noncommittal announcement about the abolition of export subsidies, which is – to put it mildly – unfair. Agricultural export subsidies must be abolished without delay, and, moreover, without demanding a
for doing so.
A distinction must be drawn, when considering domestic agricultural support, between legitimate support and those types of support that serve only to promote the interests of export-oriented agro-business. What that means is that the CAP, too, must stand the test of this comparison.
What we need is a new international legal hierarchy to create a balanced relationship between trading interests on the one hand and human social rights, together with environmental and consumer protection standards, on the other. If I mention such things as the relocation of businesses, dumping – both in terms of working and social conditions – or the ecological disasters of recent months, they will remind you of how urgently such an approach is needed. The consequence of that would be that each country would be entitled and required to decide independently when, to what extent, and how fast it would open up its own market. Services of general interest must be protected against further liberalisation; vital services such as water supply, health and education, in particular, must be excluded from international trade agreements.
The TRIPS Agreement needs to be reformed. Millions of people die every year because TRIPS denies them access to the medicines they need and instead helps the pharmaceutical conglomerates to maximise their profits. One thing we regard as important is the application of the precautionary principle to food imports. If countries, and their peoples, reject the production and import of genetically modified organisms or meat containing hormones, then that is a decision that the WTO will have to accept; no trade regulation of any kind whatsoever must interfere with their sovereign right to take it.
A new approach is also needed to raw materials policy. Rather than simply doing away with existing market regulation mechanisms, as happened with sugar and bananas, thereby driving prices right down, the Commission should put forward new public initiatives that would help stabilise the prices of raw materials.
We are told, over and over again, that to do so would not be in accordance with WTO rules. In that case, the WTO’s rules will simply have to be changed, which they can be, if there is the political will to do so. I believe that this must be pursued with a great deal more energy, and now is the time to do so."@en1
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