Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-14-Speech-3-366"
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"en.20070314.25.3-366"2
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"Mr President, our group has been seeking a consensus with regard to the reports by our fellow Members, Mr Yañez and Mr Meyer. He has sought compromise amendments, because we believe that it is important to send a message to the Latin American sub-regions in question that what the European Union is proposing is not merely a free trade agreement, but an agreement with a broader scope that takes fundamental account of political agreement and development cooperation.
If I have understood the essential discussion that has taken place in this Parliament with regard to these two reports, it appears that the representatives of the European People’s Party’s position places more emphasis on the free market aspects of these negotiations, while others, including our Socialist Group, attach more importance to political agreement, solidarity, support for democratic institutions, the fight against poverty and the fight against violence.
If we consider the actual context of commercial relations between the European Union and Central America, for example, we will see that the European Union’s trade with Central America represents around 0.3% of our external trade and that, in Central America too, trade with the European Union represents no more than 9 or 10% of their external trade.
If we apply the classic maxim
[live first, philosophise later], we will soon reach the conclusion that, given the situation in these countries, the most crucial aspect of our relations is not so much trade as fighting poverty, fighting lack of security, fighting violence and, in some countries, fighting the increasingly significant problem of drug-trafficking and organised crime. That is the fundamental issue.
A short while ago, a great European journalist, the Pole Kapucinski, said that we only take notice of these countries when there is bloodshed, and he added, ‘this is sad, but it is the case’. We are clearly facing a situation in which, having stopped paying attention, after ten years of signing peace agreements in Central America, we must now begin to take more notice and take the greatest possible advantage of the possibilities offered by the opening up of negotiations on an association agreement which we believe must enjoy the greatest possible consensus and majority support in this Parliament."@en1
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"primum vivere, deinde philosophare"1
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