Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-15-Speech-2-319"
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"en.20010515.12.2-319"2
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"Mr President, while some of the motivations behind this initiative are obviously very good, the Greens/EFA Group has a number of questions about the initiative, both on the details and the general thrust.
On the detail, as has been said, about 99% of LDC exports already enter EU markets duty free. The problem is not so much about access as about supply-side constraints, about issues concerning infrastructure, education and training. Agriculture is the key area where LDCs do not currently have access, yet it is precisely the area in which we see delays in relation to sugar, rice and bananas.
Others have raised legitimate concerns about food security in poorer countries. Rather than using their land for ever-increasing exports of agricultural commodities to the north, there are important questions to be asked about feeding their own populations.
I want to raise the question of the general principle behind this initiative. When I was at the ACP meeting in Gabon earlier this year, Commissioner Nielson praised the initiative by saying that it was a great sign of progress that poor countries are now being thrust into competition with each other. To me that is not a sign of progress, but a sign of madness. If the poorer countries compete with each other on small numbers of commodities that can only bring down international prices, with the winners being those in the north, not those in the south.
Markets in the north are not, sadly, infinite. We are already seeing how the EBA risks undermining the Cotonou Agreement and how the preferential access that has already been guaranteed to ACP countries is now coming under threat. In some senses the EU is being accused of taking from the poor to help the poorest.
Finally, I am concerned that open markets and global integration are becoming a substitute for development policies. We need to think more imaginatively about supporting poorer countries in their own regional development strategies."@en1
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