Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-30-Speech-4-017"
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"en.20030130.1.4-017"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the integration of the economies of the poorest countries into the world trade system will remain an illusion unless the returns envisaged take into account the difficulties which those countries have in trading and, particularly, in developing. The fight against poverty and food insecurity and the prevention of the conflicts which often result from them must target the structural causes and must break away from economic, agricultural and trade policies which are now bankrupt. The main economic obstacles preventing the food needs of billions of human beings from being met are well known: the obligation to sell at prices that are lower than production costs, the way in which farmers in those countries are more or less forced to concentrate on export products that are useful to the countries of the North rather than necessary to the people of the South, and the liberalisation of trade carried out by international institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, thereby depriving individual countries of the right to define their own policies.
The Commission could decide to set about solving these problems. Unfortunately, I am afraid that the method it has chosen is once again not the right one. The UNDP report for 2002 reminds us that if the process continues at the present snail’s pace, it will take more than 130 years to abolish hunger. World hunger requires more than an urgent appeal by rich countries to poor countries, asking them to fall in with the laws laid down by the WTO. When 60% of the people of Zambia need food aid, and when the multinationals, Monsanto and DuPont, control 93% of its seed market between them, more than short-sighted and short-term private investment is needed. When commercial trade worldwide represents 7 000 billion US dollars a year, when financial transactions amount to 1 500 billion US dollars a day, and when the World Bank itself considers it necessary to double world development aid which has reached a ceiling of 50 billion US dollars a year, when is there going to be a useful tax levied on international financial transactions in order to finance that aid? This is where the intervention of the European Union could be useful.
The fight against poverty makes it essential for the developing countries to gain the right to fix their own priorities and strategies in order to support sustainable food production by utilising their own natural and human resources and local know-how and investing in the structural transformation of their economies, at the same time receiving legitimate, guaranteed prices. Free-trade agreements concluded between parties which are not on a level playing ground and which are based on the abolition of customs tariffs regardless of the level of development of each party have exacerbated poverty and have had a negative impact on food security. There is an urgent need to encourage the local production of food crops by encouraging access to land, water and biodiversity resources. There is also an urgent need to cancel the debts."@en1
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