Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-03-Speech-3-350"
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"en.20080903.26.3-350"2
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"Mr President, firstly I would like to pay tribute to the shadow rapporteurs and their group advisers for their useful input on this report. I think we had some very interesting debates and we did not always agree. But at least we managed to conduct the discussions in a very civilised manner.
In education, I urge my colleagues to look at the work of Professor James Tooley of Newcastle University. He began his research at the London-based Institute of Education with the belief that private education was actually an abomination. However, he soon found out, perhaps counter-intuitively, that private schools could provide a better education to the poor. When a survey was conducted of state schools in India, some were simply shut. In some, teachers did not turn up and in one case a teacher made his students make tea for him all day long. So the working poor voted with their feet. They saved up to pay for private education, not in a steel and glass tower, but usually a simple room above a shop. These schools then subsidised free education for the non-working poor.
What is wrong, I ask, with encouraging trade in these services when it helps the poorest? Now I hear some Members of this House who believe that only the state can provide these services and it should be on a monopoly basis. And even where there is state failure or where the state collects insufficient revenue to provide these services, they do not believe that non-state players should be allowed to fill in the gap. Would they rather see the poorest people have no access to water? Would they rather see the poorest people have no access to education? Would they rather see the poorest people have no access to health care, rather than go to a private provider?
The next point of contention has been over sovereignty. Now, I agree with those who say that we should not force the opening of trade and services down the throat of our negotiating partners. But surely we should agree that where a country decides to liberalise what we may consider to be a service of general economic interest, we have no right to tell them not to liberalise their markets.
I have to say, though, I have been disappointed by some of my colleagues: some Members of this House believe that we should actually tell developing countries to close their markets. It should not be about private versus state. It should not be about local versus foreign providers. It should be about what works. Instead I believe we should all work together to bring down trade barriers that condemn the poor.
We should work together to end state monopolies that leave many of the poorest without essential services and we should be always be a friend to those entrepreneurs who want to tackle global poverty by creating wealth and jobs through increased investment in services.
I would also like to thank the International Trade Committee secretariat for their input and, while I am on my thank-yous, I would like to thank all the DG Trade officials for their useful advice and suggestions.
Clearly the European Union, as the largest exporter of services, has a strong interest in opening new markets for services. However, my personal interest in this subject is more focused on how services can be used as a tool to help the poorest people out of poverty.
But before we do that, let us remind ourselves of the importance of services. Services represent 75% or thereabouts (there is some debate/disputes over the exact numbers) of the EU’s GDP compared to only about 2% for agriculture. In Africa, services represent 52% of GDP and rising compared to 16% for agriculture. So, given these figures, it is a real shame that so much emphasis was placed on agriculture in the DOHA development round when it is really the opening of trade and services that promises to take so many people out of poverty. That is why I was prepared to accept amendments stating that negotiations on trade and services would not only serve the interests of the EU, but the economic growth of the poorest countries.
We should not forget what development actually means: it is taking people out of poverty, and we can achieve this by encouraging entrepreneurs to create wealth and jobs.
In many of the poorest countries, entrepreneurs tell me that they are desperate to tackle poverty. But what they really need are banking services for getting that cheaper loan to be able to expand their business and employ more people and create more wealth locally; insurance services, making sure that when their life or their business is ruined and something goes wrong, they have something to fall back on; legal services, enforcing those contracts made with partners; and communications services, knowing the best prices at local markets, deciding when to go to local markets and actually get into local markets.
However, we should all recognise that where governments through no fault of their own are unable to provide basic services such as health, education and water to the poorest citizens, then entrepreneurs must have a role to fill in the gaps in service provision.
Unfortunately, trade in services only accounts for about 25% of world trade but has a potential to create so much more wealth and jobs. But let us turn to some of the contentious points in the report.
One of the points of debate has been over the so-called ‘services of general economic interest’, but we should remember that different countries define these in different ways. Some countries believe that health, education and water should only be provided by the state. Others have turned to non-state players. In Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, more than 40% of people in the lowest economic quintile receive their health care from private providers. Surely we should be encouraging more investment in these sectors."@en1
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