Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-16-Speech-1-141"
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"en.20060116.17.1-141"2
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"Mr President, before I thank Commissioner Mandelson and he falls off his chair at the thought of my thanking him, I should like to make a criticism of the way that Parliament was involved there. We had 26 MEPs, 10 support staff and a press officer. At no time did I meet the press officer; at no time did the press officer run anything for the PPE-DE Group – not that he was there to support our Group; he was there for the whole of Parliament. As the person who co-chaired the Interparliamentary Conference and got the agreement on that co-chairing, I was surprised that we had no press officer. Robert Portman asked why the European Parliament was there and what the Members were doing. Mrs Kinnock from the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly was there; there were Members from the Development Committee and the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, including me. I hope you will take that message back.
Commissioner, I would first like to thank your staff: Mrs Nikolay was outstanding, as was Mr Trojan. You also were outstanding in the way you kept us informed and kept us up to date with the negotiations.
You have asked specifically today for thoughts to take forward, so perhaps I can give you a couple of things to think about. I think you did a wonderful job, but could you explain why the EU is continually being blamed – particularly by the United States – for holding up the talks? It seems to me that there are other arguments that should be put forward and yet we are not getting the message across. I have said that in the past and hope you can explain it.
In the Interparliamentary Conference, we succeeded in getting geographical indications forward. You mentioned that and yet, as far as I know, it was never involved in the final discussions. It is very important to Europe and many other countries. I was disappointed by the polarised nature of the debate in Hong Kong. There were few attempts to bring those differing viewpoints together. As one of my colleagues said, there was a lot of finger-pointing and blaming of other people, which was counterproductive. Is the big ministerial ‘jamboree’ the best way to continue the negotiations? Should we not look at a less circus-like approach?
Thank you for all the work you did, Commissioner, and may it continue."@en1
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