Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-23-Speech-3-366"
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"en.20080423.24.3-366"2
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"Madam President, let me begin with the positive. Firstly, let me put on record my thanks to Mr O’Sullivan, the Director-General for Trade, who responded quickly and positively to our request for the negotiating mandates. We received them within a week or so of him coming to the committee and being asked to provide us with those mandates.
I also welcome the significant progress that is being made in these negotiations and acknowledge, as others already have as well, that this should open up the Gulf States to EU trade and should be good for EU business.
I also accept wholeheartedly that any FTA we negotiate is going to be an improvement on the 1989 Cooperation Agreement, and as you yourself, Commissioner, reminded us and Ms Doyle has just repeated, I welcome the fact that the FTA does contain a number of non-trade clauses on subjects such as human rights, migration, counter-terrorism and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
But I do regret that the social, environmental and labour clauses that we are negotiating with the Gulf States are significantly weaker than those that we are negotiating in our modern round of free trade agreements. We would not accept the standards that we appear to be prepared to accept for the Gulf States for Korea or for the ASEAN negotiations, for example.
The Commission has already told us – and we could have anticipated this – that this is because we are negotiating on the basis of an old negotiating mandate, a mandate that has not been updated since 2001. What I have not heard from anyone on the Commission, be it the Commissioner responsible, be it the DG for Trade or the Commissioner here this evening, is why we are still negotiating on the basis of an old mandate. It is difficult not to be suspicious that the Commission felt it was going to be too difficult to negotiate modern sustainability, development clauses and labour clauses with the Gulf States. Similarly, why has the sustainability impact assessment not been updated since 2004? Again, I have yet to hear convincing reasons for this.
I must say that I am particularly concerned – Mr Carnero has mentioned the situation of women, and that is a concern that I share – but I am particularly concerned about the rights of migrant workers in the Gulf States. Of course, these people make up the majority of the workforce in the Gulf States, and I do not see how in any sense they are protected by this free trade agreement. What will the Commission do to ensure that ILO core standards are respected by the Gulf States in respect of migrant workers?
Finally, Commissioner, your colleague Ms Ferrero-Waldner met the Bahrain Human Rights Society last week and raised with her a number of concerns over human rights and migrant workers. She is quoted in the Gulf Daily News as giving her full support to human rights clauses in any free trade agreement. How will the Commission plan to implement that promise?"@en1
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