Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-17-Speech-3-167"
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"en.19991117.6.3-167"2
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"Madam President, rapporteur, the Greens had already spoken out against the WTO as early as 1994, because there were many reservations about this international colossus which embodies everything that is inappropriate to the market.
The standstill clause will prevent our legislation from being developed. A report which does not give a central place to these problems effectively ignores what is essentially going on here: a process in which the profit interests of the few are secured more rapidly through the exploitation of nature and human beings.
In the last five years, this fact has been precisely illustrated. Most people have become increasingly poorer while a handful of profiteers, consisting mainly of big corporations, have banked ever larger profits. Those who lose out are left behind in their masses by the World Trade Organisation in what is a yawning chasm of injustice. In 1994, not many Members of the European Parliament shared our reservations about the WTO’s withdrawal from the social and ecological spheres. In the end, most people at that time, however, spoke in favour of the WTO on the assumption that trade would lead to the problems solving themselves.
Today, we are suddenly hearing new voices speaking of the need to regain lost ground in the social and ecological spheres. In spite of this, a majority of this Chamber will, in the end, again vote for the Agreement although nothing has been solved and although, in Geneva, it is becoming less probable day by day that there will be a Millennium Round of negotiations at all.
Our first demand, therefore, is that mistakes should be discovered and learned from. And yet many of my colleagues do not want any evaluation of the WTO’s influence so far. Why, for heaven’s sake, is the idea of an assessment of this kind rejected so vehemently? Is not something being defended here that simply does not work, namely the ideology of the free market?
Just to clarify the contradictions in the TRIPS Agreement, it should be noted that 90% of biological resources come from the countries of the southern hemisphere, but 97% of seed patents are held by companies in industrialised nations.
It is the affluent part of the northern hemisphere which therefore has access to genetic information. Through the TRIPS Agreement, the screws are being tightened ever more on the south. Traditional medicines continue to be categorised as discoveries, while medicines based upon these but developed by the pharmaceutical industry are passed off as inventions.
Finally, the TRIPS Agreement runs counter to, among other things, the Convention on Biological Diversity, promotes product piracy and is protectionist. It, too, in this way, prevents independent development in the developing countries.
To conclude: while a panegyric to free trade is being delivered here, the sparks are flying in Geneva. The draft declarations that have been made so far are completely unacceptable, both to ourselves and to developing countries. Even health, culture and education are being sacrificed to the free market."@en1
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