Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-14-Speech-2-196"
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"en.20060314.24.2-196"2
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".
Mr President, if you do not mind I shall not go along the course of answering the point about bed linen at this precise moment. In the time I have available I think it would be better to stick to shoes, but I can assure you that the question of any anti-dumping duty on bed linen will be properly assessed and properly applied as, in my opinion, it is at the moment.
In my view, parents should not see any potential hurdles put in the way of buying good-quality shoes for their children. Those who want me to reclassify the customs segmentation for these shoes should bear in mind that the customs classification for children is up to size 37½ with heels less than 3cm. Whilst I am prepared to discuss that with my colleagues in TAXUD, it is a classification that I am given, not one that I propose.
Let me make just briefly one or two other quick observations. There was a suggestion that the investigation had taken too long. This sampling takes time. I am obliged by the regulations that exist within the European Community to observe very strict procedures and use very strict reference countries and companies when I am investigating those of another country that does not enjoy market economy status.
Therefore, just as I cannot anticipate dumping complaints – some Members were complaining that I do not show enough foresight, as if I have a crystal ball before me that is going to reveal where the next dumping complaint is going to come from – I cannot pre-empt proper procedures and investigations that are laid out in our regulations and which I am obliged to follow in detail.
Let me reply to the suggestion that somehow there was a breach of confidentiality. I do not understand this. Member States received the Commission’s working document before my press conference on 23 February. The moment these working documents go out to Member States I can assure you that they are as good as published to the media. I therefore have to clarify them immediately and explain and justify what I am doing. This certainly does not deprive Member States of their right to express an opinion on the case or to receive detailed replies from the Commission’s services.
I shall leave the matter there, except to say in conclusion that it is very important that we see what is happening in China, Vietnam, India and other Asian countries in some perspective. Of course there is tough competition and there is a difficult challenge for European producers and manufacturers to rise to, and we have an obligation to do everything we can to help European producers rise to this challenge and to help those employed in companies adjust to the challenges and the new circumstances of international trade which we are experiencing. I do not believe that a proper and legitimate way of helping people to adjust to these new forces in the global economy is to encourage people to shelter from them or to pretend that, if we close our eyes or cover our heads with a blanket, these changes, challenges and new sources of competition will somehow go away and leave us alone so that we do not have to respond to them.
Any politician giving that sort of message to the public would be guilty of false leadership, and poor leadership to the public, who need to understand what is going on and help to respond to it. We cannot maintain the pretence that we in Europe, by retreating from the competitive challenge we are facing in the global economy, will somehow be able to hide from it and, at the same time, maintain our living standards and our prosperity in the future. We cannot and will not do that.
We have to respond to this challenge by putting the emphasis on our competitiveness, innovation and ability to respond to change and to compete more effectively in the future. If we do not rise to that challenge and do not set that out to our public, we cannot blame them subsequently for reacting with fear and mystification to what is taking place in the global economy.
I think that the value of debates such as this and the important role of this Parliament are demonstrated by the very important and insightful observations that have been made during the last 45 minutes. My role on behalf of the Commission is to listen to what honourable Members have to say and to reflect very carefully on the points and arguments that have been raised. I can assure you I will reflect on them and on the observations made by Member States so that when I come back to the Commission with final recommendations I will be able to do so having heard the variety, diversity and range of different points and arguments that have been made.
However, having heard so many people this afternoon complain that my intervention is protectionist, unnecessary and unjustified, alongside a slightly greater number of Members of this House who have complained that I am not going far enough, my actions are inadequate and that I should go further, I am tempted to make the easy observation that perhaps I have got the measures just about right between those two rival points of view! However, tempting as it is to make that rather cheap observation, I am going to avoid doing so.
I should like to say, though, that I agree particularly with Mr Papastamkos and Mrs Saïfi, both of whom see the need to intervene against anti-competitive and trade-distorting behaviour by our partners, but at the same time to do so with a degree of perspective and balance that I think it behoves me to uphold. I think Mr Assis is right in that, in the provisional measures that are introduced, it is important that we maintain careful monitoring and surveillance of the effect of what we are doing so as to ensure that, if there is circumvention of our duties, we are able to review the situation and perhaps take revised action when we come to the definitive stage of our measures later this year.
Let me very quickly respond to some of the other points that have been made.
Some have drawn a parallel between the proposed action on shoes and the action that we took on textiles. They are very different cases. In the case of textiles, we were dealing with fairly-traded goods, albeit subject to a dramatic and sudden increase in volume following the lifting of quotas on Chinese textiles at the beginning of 2005. We therefore took a safeguard measure by the introduction of quotas, as we are entitled to do. We were not, as in this case, dealing with anti-competitive measures – dumping actions – that attract an anti-dumping measure in the form of a tariff duty – not a quota and not a physical limit. Therefore I do not anticipate our running into the temporary teething problems that we had in the case of textiles. This should be remembered by those who describe the textile period as involving us in some sort of war or battle with China. Far from it. We were able to agree with China the measures that we took, in a very unwarlike way.
Two other points were raised by a number of Members. One concerns the impact on consumer prices. Let us put this case into perspective. It concerns only nine pairs of shoes from every 100 pairs bought by European consumers; in other words, a fraction of the product range. A duty would be just over EUR 1.50 on average wholesale prices of EUR 8.50 on shoes which then sell for between EUR 40 and EUR 120, as opposed to a duty which would simply amount to EUR 1.50. Please do not tell me that EUR 1.50 cannot be absorbed across the supply chain by importers and retailers, especially importers and retailers who have benefited from low import prices from China and Vietnam but who have not passed on the effects of those cheaper import prices to consumers – a question that consumers may put to their retailers if they are able to encounter them at some stage in the future.
A number of Members have asked me why I am proposing to exclude sports technology shoes and children’s shoes. In the case of the sports shoes, these are excluded from the investigation because they are not produced in Europe in sufficient quantity to qualify as being potentially harmed by dumping. There is therefore no injury to European producers because they barely exist in the case of these sports shoes.
In the case of children’s shoes, the exclusion I am proposing is on the grounds of Community interest. Young children need three to four pairs of new shoes per year. The impact of a duty on the price of such shoes is therefore potentially greater than it is for ordinary shoes."@en1
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