Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-11-Speech-3-251"
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"en.20061011.21.3-251"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by informing you that Commissioner Mandelson has contacted me to explain why he is not attending this debate, and I am grateful to him for that. The reason is the Summit on India in Finland; this led to an interesting conversation with the Commissioner on the agreement with Mercosur, in which I explained to him that, as well as India or China, Brazil and the Mercosur group are also emerging powers, a view that the Commissioner certainly, and fortunately, shares.
We believe that, by means of this report, the European Parliament is making clear its support for a far-reaching and ambitious Association Agreement between the old continent and a large part of the new continent, which we want to be integrated, and we call upon the Commission to speed up the negotiations so that the agreement can become a reality as soon as possible, for the benefit of the citizens of both continents.
I would like to end, Mr President, by thanking all of the parliamentary groups for their invaluable understanding and support. I have received much understanding and support and I needed as much of it as possible in order to achieve the broad consensus that we wanted.
Let us hope that, when the bleak scenes of the Doha Round have faded away, when the elections in Brazil have taken place and when the political, economic and commercial foundations for the European Union's relations with Mercosur have been laid, which is this Parliament’s intention in the report we are presenting today, we will take the definitive steps to guide the final phase of the negotiation of an ambitious European Union-Mercosur Association Agreement.
That is the intention of our report: to restore a political, economic and commercial priority, to establish a collection of principles, rules and guidelines that give form to a strategic political priority, and to strengthen the framework for relations between two trading blocs. If we can bring them together by means of an Association Agreement which, together with the political aspects of cooperation, involves an agreement on the creation of a free trade area, we will have taken the historic step of creating the world’s largest such free trade area. At a time when new powers are emerging in the East, this would be a way to enhance the mutual interests of two blocs that are united by history and culture, with all the benefits that that would bring to our citizens on both continents.
We are talking about a combined population of more than 700 million inhabitants. Our report therefore calls for a full, ambitious and balanced agreement based on three pillars: a political and institutional chapter reinforcing democratic dialogue and political cooperation; a cooperation chapter promoting sustainable economic and social development; and a trade chapter establishing an advanced free-trade area with a broad agenda including, as well as reciprocal liberalisation of trade in goods and services, investment, public procurement, the protection of intellectual property rights, cooperation regarding competition and trade protection instruments, trade facilitation, and a binding dispute settlement mechanism.
Mexico and Chile are good examples of how our relations can be intensified by means of an association instrument. With Mercosur representing 45% of the population of Latin America and the region’s largest market, as well as 45% of its GDP, the great potential for growth on both sides is clear. Furthermore, unlike what is happening in Latin America as a whole, where US imports are three times higher than those from the EU, in Mercosur the EU quota is about 25% compared with 20% from the United States.
According to the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, the costs of not reaching an agreement are estimated to be some EUR 3.7 billion per annum in trade and goods, rising to over EUR 5 billion if one includes investment and services. The trade agreement must be wide-ranging and cover all sectors, though the specific sensitivity of certain products must of course be taken into account, as the report indicates.
We did not wish to look into the details of the agreement’s impact on the different sub-sectors, but rather we thought it appropriate to analyse the issue as a whole, to analyse the mutual interests at stake in the negotiation altogether. Our report therefore refers both to the EU's interests in Mercosur and to Mercosur's interests in the EU, and specific sections are dedicated to such important aspects as agriculture, with references to subsidies, geographical designations, bioethanol, etc.; NAMAs, where we include a special reference to fisheries and the sensitivity of certain processed products, such as canned tuna; services, where it is essential to achieve real improvements and clear and stable regulatory frameworks; investments, which are fundamental for sustainable economic development and generating employment and prosperity; public procurement and intellectual property, as well as the clear identification of possible barriers to trade and the approximation of rules on certification, accreditation, standardisation, etc., to promote fair trade and competition; and the establishment of an agreed dispute settlement instrument.
As well as the strictly technical and commercial aspects, the report also covers the mechanisms necessary for the industrial, employment and social cooperation of small and medium-sized businesses and aspects relating to technology, science, environmental measures, energy and communication, as well as European Union aid and solidarity mechanisms.
Finally, we include the necessary inter-parliamentary cooperation between the European Parliament and the Mercosur Parliament in order to make the agreement more democratically representative and bring the sometimes excessively technical aspects of the agreement more into line with the feelings of the citizens we represent, thereby giving the agreement a greater popular dimension."@en1
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