Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-23-Speech-3-079"
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"en.20070523.4.3-079"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking our rapporteur, Mrs Panayatopoulos-Cassiotou, for the spirit of cooperation that she has shown and for the quality of her work.
Since the 2005 United Nations Summit, the promotion of decent work has been recognised as an objective of the entire international community. With its communication, the European Commission has begun to consider the issues at stake in this matter, not least its international dimension: I am referring to the EU’s external policies, concerning in particular international trade, hence the work of the Committee on International Trade.
I should therefore like to focus on this aspect and express my satisfaction that, through this report, Parliament is taking up several practical proposals that were submitted by my group. These proposals had already been adopted in the opinion of the Committee on International Trade and will make it possible to initiate a new EU policy aimed at promoting social standards at international level.
Firstly, the Union already makes the signing of preferential trade agreements with developing countries conditional on the ratification of the International Labour Organisation conventions. We are now calling for the sanctioning, the suspension of the preferences granted to countries that seriously and systematically violate fundamental labour standards and, more specifically, freedom of association.
Secondly, all future bilateral trade agreements and, in particular, the new free trade agreements, which are due to be negotiated within the context of the global Europe strategy, must include social clauses on respect for decent work.
Thirdly, the multilateral dimension must not be abandoned, because it is the multilateral framework – that of the WTO – which today governs the bulk of trade. However, the Commission communication does not mention it whatsoever.
The debate therefore needs to be re-opened within the WTO. Europe could take a number of initiatives in this regard. Firstly, it could propose the creation of a ‘Trade and decent work’ committee within the WTO, on the model of the ‘Trade and environment’ committee, which has enabled some important progress to be made. Secondly, it could call for the ILO to be granted observer status within the WTO. Thirdly, it could call for the pre-eminence of the decisions taken by the International Labour Organisation to be recognised when the latter decides to call for trade sanctions against countries such as Burma, for example, which is seemingly violating trade union rights.
We have made a number of other practical proposals. I believe that it is in our interest to promote a form of regulated globalisation that ..."@en1
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