Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-06-Speech-4-203"
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, while I note what the Commissioner has just said about the excellent climate of cooperation and joint work between Parliament and the Commission, I would like in this case to express my regret about a small incident relating to the formal communication of this proposal to Parliament for information, which has prevented us from reacting properly, although we are still in time.
Globalising does not mean surrendering our experience and capacity, it means strengthening them. I hope that the Member States who are opposed to this fair initiative in the Council will understand that.
I am aware that this proposal was sent within the documents of the 133 Committee, communicated as usual by the Commission’s secretariat to the secretariat of the Committee on International Trade. Nevertheless, I would like to point that, for both practical reasons and on principle, informal communication does not replace formal notification of Parliament for information purposes. In any event, Commissioner, I would like to make it clear that we do not believe that the Commission has acted intentionally, and we can therefore start dealing with the issue itself, which is very important to the Europeans.
Firstly, with regard to the fundamental issue, I would like to point out that I am in favour of your proposal to establish an obligatory system of origin marking in the European Community. I believe that this initiative moves in the right direction. In short, the proposed origin marking system will inform European consumers of the precise country of origin of the products they buy. It moves in the direction of things we have approved previously, such as the traceability of agricultural products.
The European Commission rightly sees consumers' rights as an important, even constitutional, priority. Nevertheless, it makes little sense to have rights if one does not have the information required to make them effective. Freedom of choice does not exist if consumers are not in a position to exercise it properly.
If they are to have confidence, consumers must be satisfied with the degree of information and protection they are provided with. In fact, there can be no trade without confidence. A precise origin marking will not just benefit consumers, since this proposed Regulation will also have beneficial effects for European industry.
Our products must increasingly be associated with a high level of quality and style. That is what will allow us to survive in the globalised world, in sectors with such high levels of quality and design as textiles, clothing, jewellery and footwear, for example, and also automobiles, since that is another sensitive sector.
Consumers throughout the world are often prepared to pay more when they know that a product has been manufactured in the European Union and that is one of the 'natural' advantages that we must safeguard. In relation to the negotiations this weekend in the WTO, I would also say that I believe that such a sensitive issue to Europe as geographical indications is relevant to this line of thinking: we must safeguard what characterises us at world level.
This is therefore a point on which we fully support the Commission: we do not understand the attitude of many European Union States which are currently blocking the decision in the Council. We believe that this is an important step towards increasing our presence and competitiveness at world level and I believe that this falls within our collective responsibilities.
The Commission and the Members States should not just listen to the views of importers, wholesalers or companies that have already relocated their production to other continents, however respectable they may be. They should also listen to the legitimate demands of consumers and of European industry, which needs to accept this origin marking. This is also a question of justice. Our main trading partners impose the ‘Made in Europe’ upon us, so why do we, for our part, not contribute to increasing the prestige of this marking?"@en1
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