Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-17-Speech-4-145"
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"en.20051117.18.4-145"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, looking to the future, the next thing that awaits us is the major round of negotiations in Hong Kong and it is my belief that we have to take care that it does not abandon the multilateral approach. As things stand at present, the prospects are very poor and I find myself wondering what we can offer if this round proves a failure.
This week, I asked Commissioner Mandelson what he thought of the idea of a free trade area covering Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia. What would become of the countries of Africa? Would they then have to organise themselves, or would they have to conclude bilateral agreements with these great world markets? Whom would that benefit, and to whom would that be disadvantageous? It is in difficult times like these that we have to ensure that these multilateral talks are beneficial to these countries, and that requires the facilitation of trade, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.
As I see it, this is where we have to take ‘free SMEs’ as our watchword, with free markets for small businesses; cooperation between family businesses in Africa, in Europe and throughout the world, needs to be promoted as the basis for prosperity. What is needed to do that is a fair system of public invitations to tender, proper competition law and, finally, if these businesses are to be willing to become active in these countries, their investments have to be protected.
That does, therefore, raise the question of how we can turn development aid into helping people to help themselves, into helping our small and medium-sized enterprises? What sets Europe apart is that we are in a position to support small and medium-sized enterprises, and this is where there is much for the European Investment Bank, among other bodies, to do."@en1
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