Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-15-Speech-2-317"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2001-05-15"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Extension of duty-free access to least-developed country products2
dcterms:Language	"es"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20010515.12.2-317"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2001-05-15-Speech-2-3182
lpv:speaker	lp:Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez2
lpv:spokenAs	member; PES (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 vice-chair; Members from the European Parliament to the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the Agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the European Union (ACP-EU) (2001-02-15--2002-01-14)3 member; Committee on Development and Cooperation (1999-07-21--2002-01-14)3 unknown; Partido Socialista Obrero Español (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 substitute; Delegation to the EU-Poland Joint Parliamentary Committee (1999-10-08--2002-01-14)3 substitute; AGRI (1999-07-22--2002-01-14)3
lpv:translated text	"Mr President, we think Commissioner Lamy’s ‘Everything but arms’ initiative, which should allow the least developed countries to place their products on European Union markets with no quantitative or tariff restrictions, is a positive measure. In this overall evaluation we agree both with Joaquim Miranda and his report, which was approved by our Committee on Development and Cooperation, and with the concerns and criticisms that the rapporteur expresses with regard to the proposed amendments to the Regulation that we are discussing here. We also feel it is unnecessary, mean and even pathetic that for products like sugar, rice and bananas the proposed opening-up will not be fully effective until 2009. The reasons that have led to this cautious measure do not seem justified to us. Other machinery could have been set up to protect Community production of these foodstuffs without diminishing the value of the initiative we are debating through this move. We believe that the proposal made by Mr Miranda that this whole question should be discussed with our partners, the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, within the context of the Cotonou Agreement, is also pertinent. This ‘Everything but arms’ programme is essentially a political gesture, the essential value of which lies in the European Union’s show of solidarity towards those who are most in need within the developing world. As a gesture, it is of interest and important, but there is no reason to exaggerate its consequences – which some have defined as a threat to certain sectors in the European Union – or to exaggerate its positive effects, which are certainly very limited, on the economies of the actual countries affected. Even though this is all it may be, what should be stressed is that it is a little step in the right direction. Perhaps the most debatable point is the discrimination it makes among developing countries between least developed and slightly more developed ones; this is an arbitrary division and therefore one that introduces injustice, something that in the medium term we should overcome. Lastly, I shall mention a detail that we believe is indispensable and which is already hinted at in the regulation to which this initiative refers. It is the need to establish strict controls to prevent fraud, whereby the produce of other countries, even highly-developed ones, might reach Europe via countries that are beneficiaries of these measures in order to benefit from the new conditions established here. This really could become dangerous, and it would also be cheating the generous intentions behind the measure, which if defrauded would turn against the interests of those whom we are trying to help today."@en1

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