Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-15-Speech-2-325"
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".
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Miranda, for the valuable support he has given to what was the Commission’s and is now the European Union’s initiative. Opening up our markets to the poorest countries, and this time, fully opening up our markets, has, overall, been well received, although it is undeniable and to be expected that this proposal should have given rise to some concern and some criticism, both in this House and in the Council.
I shall therefore try to give very brief answers on the various issues that have been raised, starting with the impact of this proposal, which, we are occasionally told, would pave the way for a massive influx of agricultural products from the LDCs onto the EU’s market; your report itself puts into perspective the concessions made in terms of volume.
It is true as you have said that these countries account for only 0.4% of total world trade and 1% of EU imports. These figures are unlikely to increase in a sudden and spectacular manner, especially when the export capabilities of these countries are taken into account. We are, however, committed to increasing these capabilities, particularly by imposing health standards, as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler mentioned, but also and more generally by improving infrastructures. We, and by ‘we’ I mean the Commission, Poul Nielson and myself, do not, therefore, see this as a substitute for aid, and here I am replying directly to the point made by Mrs Lucas.
With regard to the deadlines, it is true that the Commission has re-examined its original proposal in light of the discussions held on the impact of this proposal. It is correct to say that we changed the schedule to bring about a gradual opening of the market, but over time to open it completely, for bananas, sugar and rice. It was on this basis that the Council gave its final opinion. Some regret these concessions. I myself would probably have preferred not to give concessions, but our common law is that of qualified majority and we had to achieve a qualified majority.
As for respecting the Cotonou Agreements, I would like to reiterate that the ACP ministers welcomed this proposal last December, and that they stressed the need to respect this agreement, which is what we have done. The Commission consulted Mrs Boudjenah and Mr Rod as well as the ACP countries on its proposal, and is currently in consultation with the ACP countries on the provisions needed to maintain the competitiveness of these countries, in accordance with Declaration XXIII, which Mr Howitt quite rightly quoted.
With regard to the desire expressed by some of you to make more progress, the report clearly demonstrates that universal agreement has not been reached on either the timetable or the resources. We are taking a step in the right direction and we are endeavouring to make our actions match our words. Let us begin by implementing this proposal and let us encourage other trading partners, as Mr Belder proposed, to move in this direction as well.
The Commission shares the rapporteur’s point of view on consultation with Parliament. This was a decision that would have been submitted to the codecision procedure if the Commission and Parliament proposals at the Intergovernmental Conference on reform of Article 133 had been accepted by the Member States. We know now that this did not happen and that we are, therefore, bound by the rules of the Treaty, which, on the issue of Parliament’s involvement, unfortunately remains unchanged. We have, therefore, worked and, in accordance with the commitments I undertook when I entered office, I personally have worked directly with the various competent parliamentary committees, with the Committee on Development and Cooperation in January, with the Committee on Agriculture at the end of January and with the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy in February, and I fully intend to continue doing so, unfortunately with the inadequate Treaty texts, which involves working on all the important paragraphs of our trade policy with the House.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this report represents a valuable contribution to our efforts to avoid the LDCs becoming marginalised in a trading system that is becoming increasingly global. The discussion that we are holding today is, nonetheless, welcome, as Mrs Ferrer said, given the UN Conference currently taking place in Brussels. I believe that this report confirms the breadth of consensus between our two institutions on our main goals for managing the multilateral trade regime. As Mr Martínez Martínez said, this is a small step rather than a great leap forwards, but it is undeniably a politically important step, no more, no less. It is now up to us to work resolutely towards putting this into practice. Thank you for your attention."@en1
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