Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-025"
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"en.20070522.6.2-025"2
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".
Madam President, I believe in free trade. It has benefited my country and is an important tool in helping the world’s poorest nations escape from poverty. However, the EPAs do more harm than good to the cause of free trade because of the hypocrisy of the European Union.
On the face of it, opening up our markets to imports from these countries sounds very good as it will help boost their economies, but, as always, there is a flip side to the coin. The developing countries have to open up their markets to goods from Europe, to drop their import tariffs – according to the EU’s timescale by the end of the year – and, if they will not, up will go European trade barriers and down will come the amount of European aid. You cannot run before you can walk. As the rapporteur notes, the facilities are not yet in place in many ACP countries for revenue collection to replace tariffs as a principal source of government funding.
In trying to force the pace, I believe we are doing more harm than good to the cause of global free trade. Furthermore, who do we think we are to be bullying these nations into scrapping tariffs? After all, only last year the Commission brought in tariffs on shoes from China. But that was not free trade, or fair for that matter. We were told that they were dumping subsidised products on us. But what are we doing with our surplus agricultural products, subsidised by the CAP? Exactly the same thing: we are dumping them on poor countries and, in the process, dragging their farmers into poverty.
The rapporteur says that EPAs are going to be concluded between the EU and many ACP countries. This may well be true, but only because the EU holds the whip hand. ‘Partnership’ it may be called, but it is a most unequal partnership. It suits big business but it does not suit the developing countries. The health and environment standards in Europe are so high that the potential for many ACP countries to export their agricultural produce will be very limited.
What is more, the Commission’s own impact assessment suggests that signing these deals could well precipitate the collapse of manufacturing in West Africa. As a citizen of a country that has historically espoused and promoted genuine free trade, I do not want to be complicit in this. It only adds to my determination that my country will negotiate its own trading arrangements and leave this appalling European Union, which, for all its pious talk of relieving poverty and encouraging development, has actually been directly responsible for causing poverty on a massive scale throughout the developing countries of the world."@en1
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