Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-13-Speech-2-061"

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"Mr President, I have already had the opportunity in a committee meeting to express my disappointment to Commissioner Lamy with the Commission’s new proposals and, ultimately, with the Council’s position confirming these. Given his robust remarks the day after the talks collapsed in Cancún, I was actually expecting the Commission to be thinking more along the lines of proposing a thorough overhaul of the international trading system rather than adopting a new tactical position. In fact, it is not strategic change that we are discussing today but rather a tactical repositioning. As regards the Singapore issues in particular, Commissioner Lamy is reporting greater flexibility on the part of the Commission, the kind of flexibility that emerged right at the end of the Cancún process, too late in the day in my opinion. But is flexibility still the issue today? All the same, I must remind you that the Doha Declaration required a unanimous and explicit agreement on the negotiating arrangements for these issues. In fact we know that, as things currently stand, there is no chance of such an agreement. The G90 countries, which are the poorest, have restated their opposition to opening negotiations on the Singapore issues. I think it is clear that these countries have nothing to gain for their development from such negotiations: their priorities lie elsewhere, which is understandable. Both technically and in terms of human resources, these countries are ill-equipped to play an effective role in such negotiations, which would only place greater strain on a timetable that everyone recognises is already very tight. I think that by abandoning the Singapore issues for the time being, or at least putting them on the backburner, the European Union would send out a powerful and meaningful signal to the G90, showing them that we are sensitive to their concerns. This attitude might even be a smart strategic move because it would put the European Union in a more positive position on agriculture: we would have more room for manoeuvre. As for the rest, on agriculture, the World Trade Organisation is not, in my opinion, an appropriate forum in which to deal with everyone’s rights and obligations. I think it is essential and urgent to relaunch a process of dialogue within a body like the FAO, where we can have a calm discussion on food safety and the protection and development of rural areas. In particular, I think that an urgent file like the cotton one, which was tabled in Cancún, should be given top priority by the European Union, and I would be grateful if the Commissioners could take this into account."@en1

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