Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-23-Speech-2-411"
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"en.20080923.40.2-411"2
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"−
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted that today we have the opportunity of discussing the International Tropical Timber Agreement.
Protection and sustainable management of tropical forests is becoming increasingly important in view of the need to fight climate change, maintain biodiversity and protect the rights of indigenous populations. Accordingly, there is broad support in the Committee on International Trade for the concept of an international agreement. Nevertheless, as our rapporteur Mrs Lucas has already said – and I should like to thank her very warmly at this point for her wonderful report – there is some doubt as to whether this agreement will indeed be sufficient to tackle the problem of deforestation seriously. Thirteen million hectares of tropical forest are disappearing every year owing to logging, and approximately 20% of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to this.
The reason that virtually a whole year has elapsed between the referral of the text to Parliament and today’s discussion on the agreement in plenary is by no means that the Committee on International Trade wanted to delay this debate or failed to attach sufficient importance to the problem. Instead, the reason was that, in our opinion, or rather the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs in particular, this agreement requires Parliament’s assent and not just that of a consultation procedure. At this point I should like to thank in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou, and the Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, Mr Gargani, for their clear and rapid legal advice regarding the legal basis.
In the light of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs, President Pöttering wrote to the Secretary-General of the Council in January and explained that, in our view, this agreement establishes a specific institutional framework and therefore requires Parliament’s assent under Article 300(3)(2) of the EC Treaty. Regrettably, the Council did not reply to this letter until 23 May 2008. The reply – four whole paragraphs – did not contain any kind of legal argument or any other grounds for rejecting Parliament’s request. It was in this context that the Committee on International Trade adopted the report by Mrs Lucas, the present oral question and the corresponding resolution we are debating here.
I should therefore like to highlight not only the significance of the agreement itself and of the fight against climate change, but also the issue of Parliament’s rights and prerogatives. The current Treaties grant scarcely any major competences to Parliament in the area of international trade agreements, with the exception of those agreements falling under Article 300(3)(2). The establishment of a specific institutional framework such as this is the most frequent basis for application of this Treaty provision, and it also provides the justification for applying the assent procedure when concluding Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and the ACP countries and possible agreements with Korea or India and South-East Asia – which, in turn, is of particular importance in the fight against deforestation.
Why is the application of the assent procedure so important to us? What we are concerned with is conducting parliamentary discussion and carrying out scrutiny on behalf of the citizens of Europe and thereby conferring greater legitimacy and public recognition on agreements. Indeed, it is thus also in the interest of the Council and the Commission to include Parliament as co-legislator in this.
In the light of the public interest in the preservation of biodiversity and in fighting climate change, I hope that the Commission will now at least comply with our request to present annual reports on the implementation of the International Tropical Timber Agreement and on its interaction with bilateral agreements."@en1
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