Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-12-Speech-2-155"
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"en.20010612.8.2-155"2
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"Mr President, others have talked about the issue of dispute settlement specifically. I would like to focus on the wider issue of democracy and accountability more generally.
This specific case demonstrates precisely the absence of democratic accountability in EU trade policy. That is a huge indictment of the largest trading block in the world which prides itself on standing up for those very values. The Nice Treaty could have been an opportunity to begin to improve the democracy and transparency of EU trade policy but in fact the Treaty makes these matters worse by increasing the powers of the Commission but not balancing that by increasing the powers of Parliament via the codecision procedure.
Meanwhile at Council level the 133 Committee meets behind closed doors. As parliamentarians we are not even allowed as observers much less as participants. We receive no minutes of these meetings. There is no formal dialogue between us. We thank you for the informal receptions which are very nice but they are no real substitute for a formal dialogue. Furthermore in spite of all the rhetoric about trade policy supporting sustainable development, when you look at who attends the 133 meetings, it is usually simply the representatives from the trade and finance ministries alone. But if we are serious about integrating international trade and sustainable development, then the very minimum we need to do is to ensure that representatives from social affairs, from environment, from development ministries have their voices heard at 133 meetings as well.
If sustainability really is a key issue for the EU and if the Swedish Presidency is really serious about openness, could the Presidency tell us if first of all it envisages a formalised dialogue between Parliament and the 133 Committee, and secondly if it is ready to propose revisions to the composition of that committee. Ultimately, in order to make it more likely that trade policy enjoys the support of both parliamentarians and the wider public, Parliament should in the longer term have codecision powers, not only on the final outcome of any new trade agreement but also crucially on the Commission's mandate for negotiations. The EU says it is committed to reforming the World Trade Organisation but a first place to start would be to reform the decision-making machinery of the EU itself."@en1
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