Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-03-Speech-1-174"
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"en.20060403.14.1-174"2
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".
Mr President, I wish to begin by formally thanking Mr Papastamkos for the approach he has taken to this work. His approach has allowed us to reach right across the Chamber in order to produce a very fine piece of work that I believe moves this issue forward for Parliament, the Commission and the European Union as a whole.
The WTO has taken concrete steps to improve the transparency and democratic participation in its decision-making processes, yet there remain basic flaws, which many of my contributions to this report have sought to address.
In Hong Kong some 450 meetings were organised, yet elected observers were invited to just a handful of them. Only two featured the whole WTO membership and the majority were exclusive and secret ‘green rooms’. This may make for efficient negotiations, but leaves little opportunity for public oversight of the most vital institution in the global trading system. This culture of closed decision-making is a major setback in the fight to peel back the layers of secrecy, one which parallels our own struggle with the European Council. Whilst conference leaders congratulated themselves on a transparent and bottom-up process, there are no records or minutes of these meetings. Who said what, which countries were invited or present, will never be known by the public. These concerns only increase with the organisation of mini-ministerials and ‘super green rooms’ where the majority of developing countries are either uninvited or unable to attend.
Increasing membership and consensus-based decision-making, whilst seemingly more democratic, still does not compensate for the influence of industrialised countries compared with that of their developing counterparts. Despite over three-quarters of the membership being developing countries, the WTO still pits heavyweights against flyweights.
Lack of access led to the collapse of talks in Seattle and Cancun when ministers exercised the democratic right and said ‘no’. Yet lessons were not learned. The 2005 talks were still structured so that discussions took place in different sites at the same time. This benefits the large EU and US delegations, but leaves some developing countries’ ministers – those unable to split themselves in two – feeling helpless, often knowing less than the omnipresent NGOs and corporate fat cats.
NGOs have forged a greater role for themselves in the WTO negotiations on the basis that they represent civil society, but do they? Who are their constituents and how can they possibly benefit from narrow, single-issue-driven campaigns? More importantly, how can democracy prevail when non-elected NGOs enjoy more privileged access to the key players than democratically elected representatives?
The Commission may have made conscious efforts to communicate with observers in Hong Kong, but that is no substitute for the direct input of elected parliamentarians to redress this clear democratic deficit."@en1
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