Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-10-Speech-2-453"
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"en.20070710.60.2-453"2
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".
Mr President, based on the fundamental premise that relations between the European Union and China are of vital strategic importance in political terms, we have to ensure that our trade relations are governed by two principles, which have been very well expressed by the Commissioner: on the one hand we must invest in cooperation and, on the other, we must always keep up a very demanding attitude in our relations with China.
Our trade relations with China are extremely asymmetrical. It is not just our more direct interests that are at stake, but also our essential values in terms of environmental protection, respect for employment rights and guaranteed protection for certain fundamental social issues.
In that context, we must establish a permanent debate on our cooperation efforts with this emerging great power, which is absolutely essential for keeping the international system in balance. That is why we cannot close ourselves off from China. Indeed, we cannot close ourselves off from a growing market that is opening up new opportunities for us, which, of course, we have to seize. Here, too, we have to be demanding about the opening-up of those markets and about respect for intellectual property rights, for example. At the same time, the European Union must adopt this highly demanding attitude in relation to fundamental issues concerning certain core principles of our model of economic, social and political organisation.
That, in fact, forces us to adopt the balanced position that I have mentioned (and I believe that the European Commission has been making efforts to do so by adopting the trade protection instruments that are available to us whenever we find that there is a real danger of Chinese exports threatening certain European industries, particularly footwear, clothing and textiles) and to be extremely demanding in the relations that we have to maintain with China in this area.
That, I believe, is the path we need to take, which must be based precisely on the fundamental idea that we cannot forgo having ever closer relations with China. At the same time, we have to try to promote some of our values.
To conclude, I feel that we Europeans are in a very special position in the international context, in that our interests are to a great extent identified with our values. Protecting our interests depends on promoting many of our values and, if we do manage to promote them, we shall certainly be defending our interests."@en1
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