Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-084"

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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to express my satisfaction with the way in which this debate has been conducted today in this House. I wish to do so, among other things, because I believe that it blatantly gives the lie to the allegations that we have been hearing regularly over the last few months, to the effect that only a few madmen from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament and a civil society defying the European Commission in principle or out of habit are worried about the staging and the outcome of the economic partnership agreement negotiations. That is certainly not the case, as we have heard this morning. To put it simply, there is in fact just one question to be asked today within the context of these negotiations, and that question is as follows: is the Commission able to guarantee the ACP countries that, once signed, the agreements will provide them with development conditions that are more favourable than the ones from which they benefit today? If it is, then I personally no longer have many problems with these economic partnership agreements. If it is not, which I fear, then we have to reject them as they are presented to us at the moment, and for as long as they unduly favour an approach to human relations that is overly concerned with trade, to the exclusion of everything else and to the detriment of the general interest of the peoples of the ACP countries. Improving the living conditions of as many of our contemporaries and future generations as possible, in the North and in the South, is a priority objective that we are entitled to demand on the part of the Commission. Accordingly, the Commission has a duty to proceed with the negotiations on these agreements, willingly and with all due transparency. In this regard, I refer to the very practical, very correct, remarks made by my colleague, Mr Arif. However, the Commission has a duty also to give itself, and to give our partners, the necessary timescales, as several speakers who have taken the floor before me have said. It is high time for this demand, which is made by millions of European citizens whom we represent in this House, to be considered with a far more serious and respectful approach than is the case today. Commissioner, we are hearing Members talk extensively and insistently this morning – and we regularly hear such talk in this House – about the economy, the opening up of markets and competitiveness. These words, let us not forget, are words that we must take for what they are, that is to say, concepts and, at best, instruments, whose only value is their possible contribution to satisfying the general interest, the interest of as many people as possible, not a number – even a growing number – of privileged persons, which can take advantage, both in the North and South, of any old agreement concluded with any old party, but a growing number of men, women and children who, together, represent the great majority of the outcasts of our world and who expect a great deal from a relationship with their European partners which, if not generous, is at least balanced."@en1

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