Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-285"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050511.21.3-285"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am truly astonished to hear in this House that the WTO is the vehicle for improving and promoting fair, inclusive trade. How can such an idea be asserted?
We only have to look at the tangible results of the rounds of negotiations that have been and are still being held. How can we talk about reciprocity between a giant and a dwarf, between David and Goliath? How can we hope for developing countries to be the winners of this round if we do not change our policies?
Why do we not enter into the merits of the results? Why is there no mention of how subsidies given to 25 000 cotton growers in the United States have reduced millions of people to starvation in Central Africa? Why is there no mention of how TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) have deprived and continue to deprive 30 million people – the great majority in Africa – of anti-AIDS drugs, and of how the enforcement of TRIPS in India has halved the number of people in the developing world who have access to anti-AIDS drugs?
Why is there no mention of the disaster caused by the subsidies for intensive agriculture paid out by Europe and the United States? At the Cancun Ministerial Conference, that disaster united Brazil, India and the countries in the South against Europe and the United States.
Furthermore, what preparations are we making for the next WTO Ministerial Conference to be held in Hong Kong? The impression is that we will succeed in liberalising the social services and health services, in the name of an economic liberalism that will quite simply end up making those services fee-based – and controlled by large multinationals – in the countries in the South, denying access to a large proportion of the population.
Why is no mention made of the Economic Partnership Agreements? We have discussed them and we have seen their tragic result in the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly held at Bamako. Through the appeal for complete liberalisation of trade with countries in the South – particularly Africa – and the abolition of import duties in those countries, such agreements contributed to destroying their economies, denying them the opportunity to autonomously choose their own strategies for a different kind of development.
In contrast, I believe that we should fight for a reduction in the role of the World Trade Organisation. We should fight to ensure that a whole range of goods can come under the management of other agencies, such as United Nations agencies for instance, starting with agricultural and pharmaceutical products. For these reasons, our group expresses its entirely negative opinion on the report presented to this House."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples