Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-16-Speech-3-036"
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"en.20000216.2.3-036"2
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"Mr President, the Seattle demonstrators argued that free trade is bad for the less- and least-developed countries, it is purely a rich country selfish interest.
Yet we might consider the rate of economic progress and the rate of eliminating poverty in countries such as India and Tanzania over the 40 or 50 years since they became independent. There the theory went that protectionism and state intervention would preserve jobs, allow industry to adjust gradually and without pain. It did not work; poverty became worse than ever.
The medicine may not taste too good in the short term, but opening one’s economy to competition at home and abroad forces optimal application of resources and leads to a higher standard and quality of life in the not so longer term.
Is that not the lesson of the European Union itself and of the single market in particular? As Mr Nielson said, this is a fine example to those countries and regions aspiring to greater prosperity.
Yet preaching the benefits of free trade to the developing countries is not enough. We also have to practise what we preach in our own accessibility for imports from these countries. Parliament’s resolution on the WTO negotiations advocated a free import policy by the EU. Eliminating all remaining barriers to imports, tariff barriers and quotas and, just as important, non-tariff barriers, such as Mrs Maij-Weggen mentioned in her speech – eliminating these barriers would do more than any amount of development aid to secure for developing countries the economic progress which both we and they desire.
It is quite clear that a lack of coherence of development policy with trade policy diminishes our development efforts and must also diminish the political regard of the developing countries for Europe and our fine words."@en1
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