Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-17-Speech-3-065"
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"en.19991117.3.3-065"2
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"Mr President, the experience of implementing the current WTO agreement for five years and the conflicts and disputes that it has created between countries shows that free and fair trade cannot be confined to straightforward issues of price ratios, subsidies and tariffs.
For this reason, I would like to highlight four points for the forthcoming negotiations. Firstly, we must preserve the European farm model, which authorises precisely the plurality of functions that agriculture performs for society and which would be threatened if excessive liberalisation of the food processing industry were to take place.
Secondly, we must establish a set of rules which are common to everyone with regard to areas currently not covered or insufficiently covered by the Marrakech Agreement, examples of which are health and hygiene standards, the effects on the environment and on health caused by certain methods of intensive production and the respect for consumers’ feelings.
Thirdly, we must ensure that the designations of origin of the Community’s traditional products are respected so that we do not see more of the real piracy that is taking place with impunity with regard to Community brand names, as is happening in South Africa, as a matter of fact, with regard to Port, Sherry, Ouzo and Grappa. As far as this is concerned, I think that the decision taken on Monday 15 November by the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs constitutes a dangerous retreat and a dangerous act of hesitation in view of the negotiations that are about to take place.
Fourthly, we need to ensure that all subsidies allocated to the agricultural policies’ different objectives are classified according to the same criteria. A scenario that must not be repeated, for example, is the classification of European export restrictions as yellow box, as a result of which, they have to be reduced in six years, whereas American export credits, which are exactly the same, are not subjected to any restrictions at all.
To conclude, it is important to mention the fact that the Europeans have, for a while, been taking a more offensive stand in the negotiations on the WTO’s agricultural project. Firstly, because we have implemented two major reforms in the space of seven years – a huge effort – and secondly, because unlike the sacrifices European farmers have been forced to make, the United States of America has increased its subsidies by USD 15 billion in the last two years in blatant contradiction of the line of arrogant propaganda that they are currently taking against the CAP."@en1
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