Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-295"
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"en.20020313.11.3-295"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to commercial dealings with developing countries, the Council would like to point out that the European Union is the second largest exporter and the main importer of agricultural products in the world and, in particular, that it is more or less the main importer of agricultural products from developing countries.
The European Union imports more agricultural products from developing countries than the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand put together. Between 1997 and 1999, the European Union imported more than EUR 35 000 million worth of agricultural products every year from developing countries, with no import duty in the majority of cases, or at a very low level in exceptional cases.
In fact, the European Union has a very active policy of supporting these countries, particularly through two main programmes aimed at encouraging exports from developing countries to the European Union. One is the Generalised System of Preferences and the other, the well-known EBA
(everything but arms) initiative.
Furthermore, the Council would like to remind you that, within the framework of the World Trade Organisation – comprising 144 member countries, the majority of which are developing countries – an agreement on agriculture was made by virtue of the 1994 Marrakech Agreements with the aim, amongst other things, of reducing the subsidies that cause distortions to competition in world markets.
Recently, in November 2001, the development cycle initiated by the Doha Declaration set the objective of reducing these trade distortions further, helping, at the same time, developing countries to take fair advantage of world exchanges.
Within the framework of these new multilateral trade negotiations, the European Union has committed itself to contributing to the conclusion, before 1 January 2005, of a balanced multilateral agreement that will be advantageous to all parties. The Community position consists of setting up additional reductions to export subsidies, such as export credits, state trading enterprises or other kinds of export monopolies that use one market to subsidise another; or even specific practices regarding food, whose true objective is to eliminate surpluses and open markets or suppress competition in the markets.
The Council does not yet have proposals from the Commission, which, as this Parliament is aware, has exclusive control over common commercial policy, but as soon as these proposals are presented to the Council, it will study them within the framework of these guidelines which the Commission, naturally, shares. There is no risk therefore of there being any difficulty between the Council and the Commission in terms of achieving the objective of giving more advantages to developing countries so that they can export to Union markets."@en1
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