Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-18-Speech-3-098"
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"en.20030618.8.3-098"2
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"Madam President, like many other Members I am very concerned about this lack of planning a such a late stage, when we have known for some time that tariffs were changing in 2005. I am not convinced that we are hearing answers that are going to deal with the total exploitation that exists in a lot of the textile industries in many countries throughout the world – whether through child labour, poverty wages or whatever.
As has been mentioned, we are already seeing a shift in production from the European Union to other countries. I was in Athens last week looking at the case of Schiesser-Palco, an underwear producer – they promised me a sample for the Commissioner but the post has not managed to deliver on that! That company is relocating 500 jobs to Bulgaria. The workers there resent being seen as a cheap option when they believe that they are already working for poverty wages, but in a high-unemployment situation it is very difficult to resist taking any job that is available. We are seeing the same sort of relocation through India, Sri Lanka, Latin America and China – where, we are told, the future of textile manufacturing lies.
I am not convinced that we have had an answer yet as to what is possible under current WTO rules, which means that it can be very difficult to resist imports on the current process and production rules, and difficult to differentiate on labour standards and so on. There seems to be a push coming from certain quarters that corporate social responsibility and consumer power should be the key tools in ensuring standards throughout the consumer chain. It will be left to campaigners like Clean Clothes and No Sweat to make sure that labour and environmental standards are maintained.
I am interested to know exactly what we think is possible under the current WTO rules, and whether the Commission agrees with the Vice-President of Levi-Strauss, who was arguing that ILO standards should be part of all bilateral and multilateral trade agreements."@en1
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