Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-03-Speech-3-224"
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"en.20020703.7.3-224"2
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"Mr President, the EU hosted the UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries in May 2001 in Brussels. At this conference, a declaration was adopted, together with an action programme, confirming the intention of improving the least developed countries’ preferential access to markets, while making progress towards the goal of giving all products from the least developed countries duty-free and quota-free access to the developed countries’ markets. On 26 February of last year, the General Affairs Council adopted its ‘Everything But Arms’ initiative and, during the preparations for the ministerial meeting of the WTO in Doha in November of last year, the EU called upon other developed countries to implement corresponding initiatives and so comply with the multinational undertaking – which is part of the WTO’s action plan, adopted in Singapore in 1996 – to give products from the less developed countries duty-free access. The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has also entreated them to do this. Right now, none of the measures implemented by the large countries are in any way comparable with the ‘Everything But Arms’ initiative. New Zealand’s initiative is the one that comes closest to the EU’s example. Canada, Japan and the United States have also made progress, but they are still behind in relation to the initiative taken by the EU.
An investigation recently undertaken by UNCTAD looks at the effects of the proposal. It concludes that the proposal will be to the advantage of all the least developed countries. The advantages would, however, be much greater if the other countries in the quartet of participants in the meeting – Canada, Japan and the United States – were to follow the EU’s example because, at the moment, duty is imposed on half of these countries’ exports in Canada, Japan and the United States. The recent G8 summit in Alberta, Canada, provided a new opportunity to discuss these issues. The summit focused particularly upon Africa, where the majority of these poor countries are situated. The matter is therefore evolving, and we in the European Union can be proud of the fact that we have taken the strongest global initiative in this field."@en1
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