Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-14-Speech-3-213"
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"en.20000614.9.3-213"2
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"Mr President, the conclusion on 19 May of the bilateral agreement on access to the market in goods and services between the European Union and the People’s Republic of China constituted, as we must all recognise, an important step in the process of China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation which, incidentally, has now been operating for 14 years. The integration of a partner with the economic and political size of China into the multilateral trade system will undoubtedly form one of the most important factors in the world economy at the beginning of this new century. Mr Westendorp y Cabeza mentioned the size of the Chinese population and market and the importance which this will have in terms of the internal balance of the WTO. The universal vocation of the WTO will therefore be reinforced and the discussions on the ways of making its operation more effective will from now on be an absolutely essential exercise.
At the level of the WTO, the bilateral negotiations now occurring are just one step towards the multilateralisation of the agreed mechanisms and towards the finalisation of the process in Geneva. This requires the group’s work towards accession to be continued in terms of the final wording of the respective protocol. Only at the end of this process will China’s accession be placed on the agenda of a General Council meeting for approval by the WTO members, assuming that these have, in the meantime, carried out the internal procedures required for this purpose.
At Community level, this issue must still be discussed by the Member States as the process usually followed and known as the ad hoc Ecuador process is proving to be too tacit and, as such, is incompatible with the political and economic weight of China and with the specific importance of this particular case. The European Union will have to give its clear and explicit assent to China’s accession to the WTO and the Council must decide on the overall accession package which must also be submitted to Parliament for an opinion.
I will not answer the second question posed by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza as this has been overtaken by events. It concerned the mandate conferred on the Commission and whether this was broad enough. The evidence shows that the mandate was broad enough, even too broad for some countries, including mine, which had certain concerns about establishing this mandate.
As for cooperation and technical assistance actions, we have seen that, despite the problems noted throughout this negotiating process, China has proven its commitment to the multilateral process and has even prioritised this in certain regional choices. It must now, during this stage, make an additional effort to apply the commitments it has made and to demonstrate the necessary willingness to comply with its multilateral obligations and to respect the rules and instructions of the World Trade Organisation. It is therefore of the greatest importance that the Chinese authorities carry out the necessary adaptations internally. For this reason the European Union is already prepared to provide nearly EUR 22 million for actions aimed at certain areas which may initially be more difficult to address due to the particular nature of Chinese legislation. These actions include the issues of government acquisitions and intellectual property. The developed countries must cooperate closely so that, through technical assistance measures, China can satisfactorily meet the terms agreed for its accession to the WTO. This is a fact which these countries have recognised, as was proven at the summit between the United States of America and the European Union on 31 May when this issue was addressed. China’s accession will constitute a stability factor in the world economy and will give increased importance to the next round of WTO negotiations which we hope can start as soon as possible. For this reason we must all make an effort to ensure that this objective is achieved.
It is hoped that the accession process can be completed quickly through firm commitments which are compatible with the level of development already achieved by certain sectors of the Chinese economy. This will ensure that the stability of the markets will not be threatened. However, in addition to this aspect, China’s accession to the WTO will also have effects at political level, given that the requirements for internal reforms and greater transparency, and consequently greater exposure to external public opinion, will have an impact on the actions of the Chinese authorities in areas other than the strictly commercial area. However, the next speaker will probably know more about this than I do."@en1
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