Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-226"
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"en.20030924.6.3-226"2
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"Madam President, the failure of the mid-term review of the Doha round at Cancún was a defeat with regard to accelerating world economic growth. It was also an undeserved defeat for us in the EU; but above all it was a defeat for the developing countries.
The atmosphere when the meeting started was cautiously optimistic. The European Union and the United States of America had reached consensus on a joint bid to lower agricultural trade barriers and subsidies, and an agreement on the introduction of generic drugs to improve medical care in the developing countries had been made. What, then, went wrong? If we ignore the chairman’s in my opinion hasty decision at the moment when everyone had prepared for at least 35 hours more of intensive negotiations, there are surely many reasons why it went wrong.
New as far as the Doha meeting was concerned was the appearance of the Group of 21 nations. This group, as has already been said here, probably did not have only trade goals, but also aims relating to power politics, as, for example, its opposition to real or imagined US unilateralism. Whilst these countries talked as if they were representing all underdeveloped countries, they themselves were not prepared to abandon the high trade barriers they had in respect of poorer countries. Part of the problem over cotton is connected with this.
It is time we understood, on a more universal scale than just Europe, that the development of the less developed countries is starting to differentiate very greatly. Moreover, it is worth asking what a developing country actually is. Is India, taken as a whole, still one, or even China or Brazil? Other developed countries should also follow the EU’s example and conclude ‘Everything But Arms’ agreements, as we have done with 49 of the poorest countries. We should also remember that the EU, in addition to being by far the biggest donor of development aid, buys, for example, 80% of Africa’s agricultural exports.
In terms of its form, the meeting failed in its debate on the four Singapore issues. Why, when each individual country can opt to be absent with regard to these? Why, when it had been agreed at Doha that they would also be on the agenda? It was mainly a matter of the timetable. To what extent opposition to the liberalisation of the cotton trade was responsible for the meeting’s failure remains a mystery, but it certainly played a part.
A large number of NGOs, as has been mentioned here, were happy the meeting failed. Let us hope that the underdeveloped countries will never again get caught by them as they were at Cancún. We have to move forward. The EU and the Commissioners negotiating on its behalf have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. The Commission did a good deal beforehand to ensure the success of the meeting, and furthermore used the room for negotiation it had during the meeting. The EU’s task must be on the one hand to endorse the WTO and speed up negotiations and on the other, and as a result, to further clarify to the underdeveloped countries the EU’s position regarding trade policy, as they still do not seem to know what it is."@en1
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