Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-10-Speech-4-044"
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"en.20030410.3.4-044"2
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"Mr President, I am grateful for the Commission's statement, which demonstrates that there is much more that the Commission could be doing.
Speaking towards the end of this debate it is inevitable that I will repeat many of the themes that my colleagues have already raised here this morning. However, that demonstrates the strength and the unity of concern in this Parliament about this issue and our serious determination to do something more about it. The current situation where coffee prices are the lowest in real terms for at least 100 years, leaves, as others have said, more than 25 million poor families facing ruin, unable to put enough food on the table, unable to send their children to school, unable to buy the most basic medicines. At the same time four companies control over half of world coffee sales and their revenues have been spiralling upwards to over USD 100 billion a year, at the same time as some of the poorest families in the world have seen their incomes disappear into nothing.
We in this House often face disasters with feelings of hopelessness, of powerlessness; we wonder what can we do about this and we cannot necessarily think of anything. However, on this occasion it is very different: there is plenty the European Union could and should be doing to address this particular issue. The EU has the resources and the policies to make a positive difference to these families, as well as the responsibility to do so. EU Member States account for 15 of the 21 importing country members of the International Coffee Organisation. We account for almost half of all the world's coffee imports. That gives us enormous potential leverage, and we should be using it. All that seems to be lacking right now is the political will, and the Commission should be demonstrating an awareness of greater urgency and more obvious commitment to do something about it as the crisis in the world coffee market escalates into an international disaster.
So we look forward to this communication on commodities which the Commission has promised. We also want to see some more immediate measures. We welcome Commissioner Nielson's commitment, in November of last year, to examine the possibilities of freeing up and reallocating old EDF money. We have EUR 11 billion in unspent commitments from the sixth, seventh and eighth EDFs. This gives us the resources to make a real difference, and we should focus on quick-dispersing initiatives which are designed to provide decentralised budget support to coffee-growing areas, to ameliorate the effects of the coffee crisis on access to health care and education. We need to provide additional financial support to ACP governments, commensurate to the revenue that they are losing from the current coffee crisis.
The Commission also needs to give greater support to fair-traded coffee and better access for such coffee to EU markets. Equally significantly, the issue of coffee illustrates the wider issues of commodities prices and the collapse of those prices. Why is that issue not on the WTO agenda? Many people criticise the WTO as having an agenda that is focussed towards the North and not the South. The fact that commodity prices are not on the agenda underlines that perception. I would like to ask the Commissioner this: will the Commission support the proposal of East Africa to place commodities on the next WTO agenda in Cancun, so that we can demonstrate that this so-called Doha development round is more than just rhetoric, it is action as well?"@en1
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