Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-21-Speech-3-067"
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"en.20040421.3.3-067"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Patten, my group, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, thinks it essential to view the excellent and close relations that exist above all between the EU and the United States, though, in a broader context, between Europe and North America, as has been reiterated here, as a key factor in maintaining global peace and economic growth. If these, the two largest economic and military players in the world, were to come into permanent conflict, as unlikely as that may be, it would be a global disaster. That is why our group, in any political or economic disagreements that happen to arise, tries to look ahead and find solutions rather than point the finger.
We are indeed concerned by many things. The unilateralism shown by the American leadership, one example of which is the Iraq war and its aftermath, and the policy President Bush’s administration has pursued which we think has recently only taken the interests of Israel into account, cannot have our approval. We cannot put this right, however, by terminating the framework agreement that exists between Israel and the EU or by just blaming the United States. We must try to find a way back to democracy, one in which global multilateralism and using the United Nations, and increasing its prestige, form a basis for solving crises. Good signs of this are already visible in America’s attitude to the forthcoming Iraqi administration under the supervision of the UN. Bad signs, on the other hand, are still almost exclusively visible in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and that is why the EU needs to be ever more active there.
We also disagree about many trade policy and immaterial rights issues. For example, America’s unilateral approach to applying the concept of dumping is not in harmony with good trade practices, but protectionism.
Under the expert leadership of Commissioner Pascal Lamy, the EU has endeavoured to remove barriers to speeding up the World Trade Organisation Doha round of trade talks. The United States on the one hand is a good partner in these negotiations, but on the other hand it also constitutes a certain barrier itself with its own system of rotational aid for agriculture and industry. By this I do not mean that the blame always lies elsewhere and not with us. We also have to open up our markets in this sense to a greater extent than previously. Once again, problems will be solved through dialogue, not through an escalating trade war.
I wish furthermore to stress that the values we share, as has been often been said here, on which both continents – I am including Canada here – will build their future, democracy, freedoms and rights of the individual, human rights, a society based on statutory law, the market economy with its system of free enterprise, are such a wide basis for the development of natural, lasting and good relations between us, that conflicting interests can surely be settled. I am sure that speakers from our group will follow in my tracks and address many of the individual issues that make up transatlantic relations."@en1
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