Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-03-Speech-1-168"
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"en.20060403.14.1-168"2
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".
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Papastamkos, and pass on apologies from my colleague, Mr Mandelson, who would have preferred to be here personally, but came back today from Rio, where he spent a couple of days trying to come closer to a common understanding with his counterparts from the United States and Brazil, as well as with Mr Lamy, the Director-General of the WTO.
We need to continue to work for trade justice. One of the main achievements of the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference last December was the acceptance by other developed countries to follow the EU way of granting a duty-free, quota-free access to products originating in least-developed countries. But, as you report rightly points out, it is to be regretted that the decision still allows rich countries to exclude 3% of tariff lines.
Since we are approaching the end phase in this round, we now need to deal with all negotiating areas simultaneously. That requires an intensification of quiet contacts with key partners – like the meeting held last weekend in Rio – to map out potential final packages. At the same time we must continue to reach out to the entire WTO membership, in particular the LDCs and the mid-range developing countries, to build multilateral consensus. Mr Lamy has a crucial role to play there.
The final deal must serve the interests of all WTO members and especially the least-developed countries and the other weak and vulnerable members. Even though this is becoming increasingly challenging, we will continue to work towards deadlines agreed in Hong Kong, such as that concerning agreement on the arrangements for agriculture and industrial tariffs by the end of April. At the same time we will ensure that other issues in this round that will take longer, such as services, rules and geographic indications, remain part of the single undertaking.
We will continue to inform you and listen to your views on the major developments in this round.
Mr Mandelson asked me to update you on how he sees the state of play on the round in light of this weekend’s events. Unfortunately, the talks in Rio did not lead to a significant breakthrough. However, they were an important further step to get a better understanding of each other’s positions. We need to understand the pressures on, and aspirations of, our partners. It is not about forcing others to move to our position. It is about understanding where everybody stands and then seeing how our positions can be brought to meet in the middle in a way that brings sufficient gain to all of us. There are still differences, but key players are not talking over one another’s heads as much now. There has to be simultaneous movement now.
As far as the timing and the deadline to agree on arrangements for agricultural and non-agricultural market access by the end of April is concerned, that is still a possibility. However, the contours of the potential deal are not yet fully there. Mr Lamy summarised the state of play after the Rio meeting by calling on Brazil to be prepared to open its industries to foreign competition and by calling for the EU and the US to sweeten their offer to open farm markets. That shows that the European Union finds itself in a better position than it was before and in the immediate aftermath of the Hong Kong Conference.
Members now realise that an advance on the EU’s agricultural offer is not currently in the making and that the success or failure of the round cannot depend on that one factor, but on overall balance. The equation to solve between the competing interests of the WTO members is not easy. However, our objectives and our ambitions remain unchanged: creating genuine new business opportunities in agricultural and industrial products and services in developed and advanced developing countries, as well as contributing to development; restructuring trade in agriculture; and strengthening multilateral rules.
We can only attain our objectives through a broad and ambitious round. We are paying into the round with proposed real reductions in agricultural tariffs, as well as trade-distorting subsidies, if these are matched by real cuts in industrial tariffs and genuine additional services liberalisation by those who can contribute. We also need to preserve the single undertaking outside of agriculture and industrial goods.
In that respect we would to thank Mr Papastamkos for his excellent report. We thank you for the support for an ambitious and a genuine development Round. We agree with the approach taken by the rapporteur, who has underlined the need to make progress on all issues in this wide-ranging agenda, with a clear emphasis on the objectives of poverty reduction and sustainable development. We very much appreciate the support of this House in pursuing them. However, by referring to a genuine development round, let us not fall into the trap of simplification and generalisation that dismisses the fallacy that agricultural liberalisation would only be a magic recipe for development.
As laid out in an interesting study by the Carnegie Endowment, the bulk of the benefits of agricultural liberalisation are limited to developed countries and a core group of highly competitive farm exporters, especially Brazil, Argentina and South Africa. Other elements should be taken into account such as the impact of preference erosion in poorer developing countries. For all those reasons, the key gains for developing countries in the DDA lie not in agriculture, but in trade in industrial goods, especially in labour-intensive industries such as shoes and textiles.
Another fallacy which your report rightly breaks is that within the developing country group all countries are equal. They are not. If we want this round to truly deliver its development potential, then that needs to be taken into account. Contributions to the round should be based on capacity to contribute. Developing countries do not have identical interests and capacities in trade. That is a matter of common sense. We accept that developing countries should, as a general rule, contribute less in terms of market access than developed countries. However, advanced developing countries should provide a meaningful contribution through genuine new market access in non-agricultural market access and services, albeit less than developed counties. They should only do two-thirds of what we do. That is what we call the principle of less-than-full reciprocity.
As for other developing countries, we agree that they would take up fewer commitments in line with their level of development or, as far as least-developed countries are concerned, even no commitments at all."@en1
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