Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-254"
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"en.20030903.10.3-254"2
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"Mr President, we have just heard Mr Lannoye and Mrs Morgantini present their excellent reports, which we totally support. This also gives us an opportunity to adopt the reports before the WTO Ministerial Conference opens in Cancún, and I hope that Commissioner Lamy, who will be representing the EU next week, will oblige us by taking the reports into account as part of his negotiating mandate, especially as regards the key issue of preventing water privatisation. I am sure my friend Mr Lannoye will not hold it against me if I say I attach particular importance to Mrs Morgantini's report.
The Commission wants to help the developing countries to take advantage of trade. The question is, will the WTO's rules allow them to do that? I am not sure, given the disagreements that currently divide the developing countries and the western countries over the Singapore Issues, for example, that the European Union is best placed to support the position of the countries of the South, as it has its own interests to defend, the most striking examples being agriculture and fisheries.
Helping the developing countries to take advantage of trade first and foremost means changing the rules governing trade to make them more favourable to developing countries. The countries of the South were first encouraged to export commodities with low added value, only to have restrictions imposed on them, and they are now reeling from the impact of the fall in commodity prices and the problems in accessing markets in the countries of the North. As for the WTO, it does not so much regulate markets as liberalise trade. For example, the common market organisations for coffee and cotton and the price stabilisation systems for raw materials have at present simply disappeared.
What is more, does helping countries really mean helping their populations? Do the hypothetical benefits of trade really go to the poorest people, or do they get no further than the top of the ladder in these countries? Promoting fair trade is still the only viable long-term strategy. On the one hand, we have to pay the producers in the countries of the South a fair price for their commodities; on the other hand, there is an urgent need to open up our markets to imports from developing countries and to abandon subsidies to our farmers. To that extent, the Cancún conference gives some room for optimism. I hope they will not be disappointed.
It is only by changing and diversifying their production that the developing countries will really be able to establish their independence and play a key role in world trade. The Commission's efforts should be directed towards achieving that objective, and this is the issue that the Cancún conference should focus its work on. Helping developing countries to develop their trade above all means helping the populations of those countries to try to live a better life. Can trade be a means of ensuring a better life? I do not doubt that it can, but it is certainly not the only way."@en1
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