Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-27-Speech-2-055"
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"en.20050927.5.2-055"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you, Commissioner, for wanting to start the second phase. You have talked about a first phase agreement on the issue, and you have talked about a second phase that will take into due consideration a number of factors that we wish to emphasise, regarding quality, wholesomeness, protection and tradition.
Commissioner, the European Union has always pursued a policy of quality in the wine sector by means of very specific and very selective rules on wine content and wine-making procedures. How can we now ask our producers to comply with Community rules and the Community’s quality policy if we then give third countries the chance to export to our market products that the Community itself forbids its own producers to make? How can we ask our producers to compete on price with imports that benefit from production costs that are held down through the use of production practices that appreciably impair quality? Quality above all means guaranteeing a wholesome product for the consumer: food safety is for us a priority that we have vigorously pursued and have regulated more than once; I refer to Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 and the special Food Safety Authority.
The positive effects of wine on human health are now well known: they depend not just on its organoleptic properties but on its hygienic and sanitary status as well. The lack of any indication of origin of the wine, moreover, means that the consumer cannot identify it, and it also leads to difficulties for producers who incur extra costs in order to make a superior quality product. It is our job to ensure that the wine on our tables – on the tables of European consumers – is both wholesome and good quality.
Our wine-making traditions, Commissioner, are no less important. This morning we have invoked our ancient culture, our specialities and our territorial diversity. In a word, it means ensuring that the geographical indications for our wines are respected and that our production in this sector thereby remains competitive. I do not see sufficient protection for our geographical indications in this agreement; I do not find it consistent with the position that the European Union is advancing in the WTO negotiations; and I do not find in it that same firmness of resolve that you yourself, Commissioner, reaffirmed last week in the Council.
If we want to protect our indications in the Doha Round, we must do so, particularly through bilateral negotiations, without making any concessions. The agreement does not respect our producers; it does not respect our consumers; it does not respect our market; and it does not respect the European Union’s identity on the international stage. It is not a case of closing the market – far from it – but of ensuring fair, undistorted competition, in which both product quality and consumer protection really can prevail."@en1
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