Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2017-07-05-Speech-3-835-000"
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"en.20170705.43.3-835-000"2
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"Madam President, as we have heard, this case was referred to the Court more than three years ago, which means a trade deal that we negotiated over years and initialled has been in the deep freeze for that time period.
Apart from the damage that has done to us as trade negotiators, my fear about this is that it is not actually going to bring any more clarity to the situation than we had before the court case. I am afraid that nothing the Commissioner has said tonight has given me hope that this would be different. The logical consequence of the court ruling should be to leave investment out of the Singapore Free Trade Agreement and proceed as quickly as possible with a goods-only agreement. That could be ratified very speedily and it would also take a toxic matter out of the agreement.
I hope that the Council, which should have been part of this debate tonight, will actually agree with this and take the matter forward but, as the committee Chair has said, this goes beyond the Singapore Free Trade Agreement. The Commission has done this, and I pleased to hear that. The Lisbon Treaty makes it very clear that this House, which is legitimately elected by the EU citizens, is the only Parliament entitled to ratify EU—only free trade deals.
In future, the Council should not artificially add to the mandate for free trade agreements in order to maintain mixity. Secondly, as Mr Fjellner has said, by not doing this, we can avoid the potential scenario of any one of 43 national and regional parliaments holding our trade agreements hostage.
The Court has given us a unique opportunity to put new impetus into our trade agreements. I think a majority in this House is willing to grasp that nettle. I am not yet convinced that the Commission is, and I am very worried that we have had radio silence from the European Council on this matter.
The Council should be prepared to act and give trade policy a chance."@en1
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