Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-07-Speech-3-218"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080507.17.3-218"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, firstly can I thank the Commissioner and his staff, the committee staff, my group staff and my own staff for the work that has gone into this report. I would also like to thank the shadow rapporteurs on behalf of the major political groups who, in a spirit of cooperation, have made this report what it is today. I take full responsibility for the report, but all of the above have their political footprints trodden across its pages.
The Trade Committee believes that an essential part of any agreement must be a sustainable development chapter, including a sustainability impact assessment. Plus we need a parallel political cooperation agreement with binding social and environmental clauses committing both sides to the ratification of core ILO conventions, as well as the normal PCA clauses on human rights and democracy.
Trade and sustainable development fora should be established including employers, employees and civic societies that can actually have an input not only into the negotiations but, more importantly, afterwards on how the agreement is carried out.
The report suggests that we should consider environmentally friendly and fair trade goods having preferential access to the EU, that the tariff barriers should be taken down more quickly. But of course, were that to be implemented, we would require the Commission to modify its customs nomenclature to enable this to happen.
There are some country-specific issues. On Singapore we have concerns about banking secrecy that were made clear when the committee visited and spoke to members of parliament in that country. We welcome the restoration of democracy in Thailand. And of course we have agreed that Burma should participate in, or at least sit in on, negotiations, though it is absolutely clear from our point of view that until the current regime has gone, there can be no prospect of signing any agreement with Burma.
Our idea is to have a framework agreement for all that allows individual countries within ASEAN to act on the basis of their own current situation and to open up particular sectors at an appropriate speed for them. So eventually – and I emphasise eventually – we will have a common and full agreement with all.
So while one can only welcome Vietnam’s leadership of the process, the institutional architecture, compounded by a lack of drive and will on the part of some ASEAN nations, has made progress slower than anticipated or wanted.
Let me be clear, the European Union should not allow foot-dragging by individual member states of ASEAN to veto progress. If there is no alternative, Council, Commission and Parliament might in the last resort look at the possibility of bilateral rather than multilateral arrangements. I hope that government and civil society in ASEAN see Parliament’s position here today as an encouragement to move forward, and move forward quickly.
In some sense we wish that this negotiation between the EU and ASEAN was unnecessary. My own committee’s priority is very clear: we want a successful conclusion to the Doha Development Round, which unfortunately looks at the moment as if it is being sucked into the black hole of the US presidential selection and election.
It may hopefully emerge relatively unscathed in six or twelve months’ time after the inauguration of President Clinton, McCain or Obama when the US finally has a new trade spokesperson in place to continue the dialogue. But in the interim it looks like we will have negotiations with Korea, where my colleague David Martin was Parliament’s rapporteur, with ASEAN and with India for bilateral or EU free-trade agreements.
The Council’s mandate to open talks with ASEAN, the EU’s fifth-largest trading partner, covered only seven out of the ten members of ASEAN, since ASEAN is an extremely diverse region ranging from economies whose GDPs are equal to those of some nation states of the European Union to three less developed countries, two of whom benefit from the ‘anything but arms’ provisions and one of whom is the pariah state of Burma, of which we have heard so much talk today.
It is clear that a free-trade agreement will potentially benefit both sides, increasing the flow of goods and services, and enhance innovation and boost economic growth.
We welcome the signing of the ASEAN Charter on 20 November last year at the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore and look forward to its swift ratification. This should help to strengthen economic integration within the ASEAN countries and in my report we call on the Commission to provide technical and other assistance to facilitate the process.
The negotiations need transparency on public procurement, competition and investment, intellectual property rights and state aids. We need to talk about the removal of non-tariff as well as tariff barriers, particularly with respect to banking, insurance and legal services.
On our side, simplification of the rules of origin is important. Harmonisation of standards including product safety, child protection and animal welfare is something else we should be seeking.
We need to protect against counterfeit pharmaceuticals, but at the same time the committee is concerned that we do not compromise the flexibility of the TRIPS arrangement."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples