Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-12-Speech-2-158"
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"en.20010612.8.2-158"2
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".
Mr President, I would very willingly have let the debate proceed between Parliament and the Council, without any intervention by the Commission in this affair, an affair in which the Commission has a completely clear conscience, but Mr Clegg’s speech, and the slightly abrasive tone in which he made his remarks, make it necessary for me to provide a few explanations.
As far as procedure is concerned, I would remind you that the decision to launch a procedure of this type at the WTO forms part of the executive responsibility of the Commission. We took this decision while fully complying with the rules set out in the Treaty, which are what they are unless and until they are changed. The Commission, as you know, would like to change them, but the Council has decided otherwise and up to now, when it comes to amending the Treaty, it is the governments of the Member States who take the decision.
We therefore observed the procedures entirely correctly. The 133 Committee, the consultative body of the Council, gave its support to the launching of this procedure in March, and it confirmed its position in June 2000.
As Mrs Mann and Mr Schwaiger have said, numerous discussions have taken place between the Commission and its staff and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the question of this WTO case. I myself have responded to oral and written questions which have been raised by the Members of this House. I have also met some Members in person in order to discuss the subject with them.
In order to make things quite clear and to add my own opinion to this debate, I would remind you, in case anyone needs reminding, that it was not a question of taking sides in favour of such and such a business, or in somebody’s individual interests, whether that would have been legitimate or not, but rather of assessing, from the point of view of the interests of the Union in general, the compliance of the American law on trade marks with the WTO Code.
That is why I believed, and I said so at the time before the Committee on Industry, that a parallel intervention by Members of Parliament in a WTO procedure seemed to me to be rather strange, even inappropriate, and I said at the time, and I shall say it to you again now, that I believe that a proper exchange of information between us should have the effect of avoiding any repetition of this type of incident in future."@en1
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