Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-13-Speech-2-168"
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief. I would like to express my gratitude for the constructive contributions, of which we have heard a great many during the course of today. I would simply like to comment on the issues relating specifically to agriculture, and then my fellow-Commissioner Mr Lamy will round off the discussion.
It was asked whether there are signs that the USA is now showing more flexibility on the cotton issue. Well, as you know, Bob Zoellick has sent a letter to all WTO members in which he specifically addresses the issue of cotton. In fact, he devotes a whole chapter to it, and from the way he presents it, there are indeed signs of more openness on this issue. At any rate, he shows that he is open to reforms not only on export subsidies – that these should be eliminated, also as regards market liberalisation and the adoption of a less trade-distorting system of domestic support – but he also indicates that ways of providing better support to the very poor countries, which are wholly dependent on cotton production, should be developed through development assistance.
Let me comment on what Mrs González said about cotton cultivation and the importance of cotton for Europe. I must stress, yet again, that it is true that European output only amounts to around 2% of the global market. It is also true that we do not apply any export subsidies and that we have completely opened our cotton markets to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) through the EBA decision. Indeed, as you know, there is a proposal to amend our cotton regime, which would result in less trade-distorting measures for cotton; in other words, a mix of blue box and green box measures. I am working towards the adoption of a decision on this issue in the Council of Agriculture Ministers in March.
On Japan’s rice policy, we all know that rice is a very sensitive issue for Japan and it has always been viewed as such. However, we have seen that Japan has recently commenced bilateral negotiations with a number of WTO member states. The rice issue is indeed included on the agenda for these bilateral negotiations and is an element of the negotiations, and one outcome is that the Japanese have generally started to adopt, shall we say, a more constructive or less rigid position on this issue in Geneva.
It was claimed that there exists no mandate to negotiate away the current export refund regime. In fact, this is quite simply wrong; our mandate states quite specifically that we can indeed propose this for various products.
Mrs Mann asked me about progress on our sugar proposal. We are working hard on preparing a proposal and I have already said that I am aiming to submit the proposal to the Commission in mid 2004 and then present it to Parliament and the Council.
Let me make one final comment; I would like to ask this House to play a part in intensifying the dialogue that we proposed in our opening statement. We need more, we need more intensive talks, and I would ask you in particular to deepen the discussions with the NGOs, for some of the NGOs sometimes come up with ideas that are quite contrary to Europe’s interests.
I would ask you all to consider that waiting is in any event bad for us, for the European Union, and also for European agriculture. Please consider this: the very positive reactions to our reforms around the world will fade away as the gap between the adoption of these reforms and the progress of the WTO negotiations widens."@en1
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