Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-06-Speech-3-046"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050706.3.3-046"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Mr President, those of us who were in Edinburgh on Saturday were left in no doubt about the strength of popular support for making poverty history. I hope that the G8 meeting this week keeps faith with that passion.
I welcome Mr Straw’s comments on the Doha agenda, but the fight against poverty will be won or lost not in headline talks between world leaders but in the anonymous rooms where civil servants hammer out the detail of trade agreements. Therefore, could the Commission and the Council give us an assurance today that, when it comes to nitty-gritty trade discussions in the months ahead, making poverty history will still be top of the agenda, away from the world’s media and away from parliamentary scrutiny? In the detailed backroom discussions on agriculture production, export subsidies, sugar reform, imports of processed goods, rules of origin, the contentious economic partnership agreements, will poverty reduction still be the Commission’s and the Council’s priority, even when European agriculture and big businesses are lobbying heavily?
We must go one step further than trade agreements and support developing countries in building their capacity for trade through things like microcredit and better transport links, as Commissioner Michel mentioned, so that both regional and world markets can be accessed to the full. Some trade-related technical assistance already exists: for example, the Commission’s pesticide initiative programme, which helps African farmers meet European food safety standards. However, that initiative is a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed.
Liberals and Democrats have always stressed the importance of fighting corruption and fostering good governance. Part of that is a duty of respect to democratically-elected governments, whether we agree with them politically or not. Indeed, in its report, the Commission for Africa stressed the importance of pragmatism, of having a programme of action based not on ideology but on sound evidence about what works and what does not."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples