Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-24-Speech-2-385"
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"en.20061024.38.2-385"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Muscardini, and the Committee on International Trade for the excellent work that they have done on this important issue.
We will take the opportunity of any bilateral trade agreement with third countries to ensure that our partner countries take on specific obligations on the fair use of trade defence instruments. This is not an alternative to strengthening and improving the rules at the WTO. On the contrary, it underpins that. It is a way of getting insurance in place, so that we can use all available methods to bring reason and discipline to the operation of these instruments. This would particularly apply for those countries that abuse them the most.
Good practices are as important as good rules. That is why the Commission’s departments devote a great deal of time and resources to providing technical assistance to third countries that become new users of trade defence instruments. Our aim is that they should apply them in a fair and balanced manner and in accordance with our own high standards.
These efforts seem to bear fruit. The end of 2005 saw a welcome change from the trend of previous years, with a significant fall in the number of trade defence cases initiated against Community exporters, from 33 in 2004 to 19 in 2005. Market access, including a fair and proper implementation of WTO trade defence instruments by our trading partners, features high on our priority list and we will continue to take any steps required to ensure that our exports are not unduly penalised.
Of course it is difficult to follow each and every case with our current resources and I would certainly like to do more for our exporters, in particular small and medium-sized companies, which often have little experience in this area. The EU must remain an example that others can follow.
As the report recalls, we are viewed as a moderate user of trade defence instruments. That reputation is deserved and that must remain so. It is in that spirit that I recently launched a reflection process on how Europe’s trade defence instruments such as the anti-dumping instrument operate in the modern global economy. A broad public consultation will take place early in 2007, based on a Green Paper expected in the coming months.
This consultation will allow the Commission to draw on a wide range of views and identify whether there is scope to improve our rules and practices further. Our trade defence instruments can make an important contribution to ensuring both free and fair trade, thereby stimulating our competitiveness. This will involve strong and close cooperation with all stakeholders, including Member States and industry, and, I would add, the support and involvement of the European Parliament.
The European Union is a major exporter worldwide and this leaves us exposed to trade defence actions by third countries. When such actions are taken in compliance with WTO rules, we cannot and should not complain, and we do not. However, that is not always the case and these actions can easily become a serious and unjustified impediment to our legitimate market access opportunities.
Therefore, we must closely monitor third-country actions against our exports and intervene to minimise the negative impact of such actions on our companies. And we should certainly be vigilant. Whenever possible we favour the diplomatic route, which is the quicker and the most efficient way to solve those issues when we have partners who wish to solve them. But when diplomacy fails, we do not hesitate to resort to WTO panels, as it is our right to do.
Both the diplomatic and the litigation approaches have met with notable successes. Take, for example, the Indian cases mentioned in the report. Diplomacy has resulted in the removal of no fewer than 12 measures. We also hope for significant success on the agricultural products cases that you have identified.
It is well known that the United States is a recurrent problem for us in this context. It is pro-free trade, but its use of the trade defence instrument is seen by many as unreasonable on certain issues. This has been particularly marked in the steel sector, where we have been arguing against certain practices for years on a large number of their dumping and subsidy measures. We have had a considerable success in Geneva but, frankly, it is a long hard slog even getting them to implement the remedies to the disputes which they have lost.
We cannot solve everything through diplomacy or litigation. This is why we welcome your support for the proposals we have tabled in the Doha Round to strengthen the rules and the disciplines governing the use of anti-dumping and countervailing measures.
The Round is suspended, something I deeply deplore and regret, but we are fighting hard to get it restarted. For trade defence this would allow us to seek improved disciplines along the lines of the EU practice in this field, making it more difficult for countries to abuse the system, which I am afraid some are only too prepared to do. We need tightened disciplines in the anti-dumping system.
We need greater transparency in the operation of trade defence instruments. We need less arbitrariness on the part of governments. Such behaviour simply discredits the rules. It brings the system into disrepute and it does not reflect credit on the multilateral trade system and its principal institution, the WTO.
We agree with you that the dispute settlement mechanism is an essential feature of the WTO system, which needs protecting, but we are working hard to improve it so that faster remedies can be achieved."@en1
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