Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-175"
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"en.20020313.7.3-175"2
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"Mr President, the Greens have spent more than a decade endeavouring to expose the myths at the heart of the free-trade theory. Now we know for sure, as we have always suspected, that the rhetoric of the US and its major corporations was a sham. Far from being at the centre of a development agenda to help poorer nations out of poverty, the US tariff barriers reveal how that country uses trade rules to gain access to other people's markets, while protecting its own industrial interests at home. The US view is clearly that free trade is a one-way street for a superpower: good for US exporters, but not so good for US domestic industry.
Contrast that with the unequivocal lectures given by the US to developing countries at the WTO meeting in Doha, to the effect that, by liberalising their markets, they will automatically reap the benefits of globalisation. Poverty eradication and sustainable development are somehow automatically meant to follow, yet poorer countries have known for a long time that this is often far from the case.
Perhaps the one good thing that could come out of President Bush's unilateral introduction of tariffs on steel imports would be a much-needed serious debate about the flaws and weaknesses inherent in the free-trade model, because there is growing opposition to the global inequality inherent in its
that every country must put international competitiveness above all other domestic concerns. The reaction against this ranges from Indian farmers calling for an increase in tariffs to protect themselves from cheap food imports, through to steel workers, including fully restructured UK steel workers, who find that they will now still be unable to compete with Romanian steel exports.
However, there are some retaliatory actions that the EU should consider, which will send the right signal to the US. I would like the Council and Commission's views on them. For example, since the US has refused to implement the Kyoto Protocol because of the perceived impact this would have on US business, the EU should levy an energy tax on all US-manufactured goods. Or we might consider the issue of a complete ban on all imports of US-produced GM foods, since US pressure exerted under free-trade rules has prevented EU ministers from reflecting popular opinion by banning such foods from markets here. The time is long overdue for the EU to call Mr Bush's bluff."@en1
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