Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-13-Speech-1-064"

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"Mr President, if the failure of Seattle really were to lead to a standstill or slow down the trade integration processes at global level, it would be a disaster. It would be a disaster for the producers and the workers of the weakest countries, and not, as was said, for the multinationals, which would find, as they have always found, ways to penetrate industry and trade more deeply anywhere in the world. It would be a disaster for the consumers in European countries, in particular for the weakest consumers who would be frustrated in their hope to have a wide choice of products from all over the world at lower prices than those found in the national markets. It would be a disaster for the environment, as the poorest countries, whose products would be denied access to European and American markets, would continue to exploit natural resources. Seattle did not fail, Commissioner, because of the WTO’s inadequacy or the United States’ electoral campaign, although this did contribute to the failure. Seattle failed because the political desire of the main countries was to slow down, instead of accelerating international trade. Europe, Commissioner, added its problems, thus overburdening the agenda with subjects unrelated to the specific field of international trade and providing an excuse for those who stood to benefit from applying pressure to slow down the process of integrating world markets, but certainly these benefits – I repeat – did not extend to European consumers or Indian or Pakistani workers. Mr President, Commissioner, I think that Europe, with its age-old tradition of the market economy, free trade and economic freedom – freedom which does not need to be qualified by adjectives – must assert that the objective of integrating the markets and of free trade is a goal in itself, which we must attain for ourselves and all the other countries. Let us leave the other matters to the competent bodies!"@en1

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