Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-23-Speech-1-076"
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"en.20090323.14.1-076"2
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"Madam President, firstly can I apologise to the Commissioner and to my fellow rapporteurs for missing the debate until about five minutes ago? I have been delayed getting here and have managed to arrive at the last minute. I hope that I will not be repeating what other people have said, or at least not too much, and can I ask them to bear in mind my apology for that?
I am actually speaking on two issues: I am speaking as the rapporteur on the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement with the Pacific and as the shadow rapporteur on behalf of the Socialist Group on behalf of the Interim Economic Partnership with Eastern and Southern Africa.
The whole debate that we are having this evening was not triggered by any decision of the European Commission or the European Union that we wanted a new trade relationship with the countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific, but by a decision – a decade or more or so now – of the World Trade Organisation that we were unfairly discriminating in favour of some developing countries at the expense of others. Some people have said that this should be just about development – I am very much in favour of that – but we have to bear in mind that one of the underlying requirements is that it is actually about making our agreements with these countries WTO-compatible. So we have to do that; that it is the first thing.
On top of WTO compatibility, we must do whatever we can to try and improve the situation of these various regional blocks and to try and deal with the particular situations that actually face them. With respect to the Pacific, for which I am the rapporteur, we have a collection of 14 – plus one if you include East Timor – very small nation-states. One, in fact, is the smallest country in the world, with a population that is exactly one million times less than that of China – Nauru. But even the biggest ones are actually comparatively small, and we need to take that into account in what requirements and demands we put on them. We need to make sure that there are adequate transition periods for small and medium-sized enterprises because, quite frankly, apart from some mining enterprises in Papua New Guinea, they are all small and medium-sized enterprises. We need to do what we can about regional trade and in particular to take into account the special relationship that countries of the Pacific have with Australia and with New Zealand.
Only two of the 14 have actually signed up for the Interim Agreement. However, I know from my visit to Port Moresby at the last ACP meeting that there are other Pacific countries that would like to sign a final agreement provided it meets their requirements, which is why, in my case, I am actually in favour of the interim agreement. That is the message I got, both from the governments of Papua New Guinea and Fiji. Not that they are entirely happy – there are issues that they would like to renegotiate – but they see the answer as being signing up and accepting an interim agreement which would lead towards a final agreement which will be more development friendly and will enable more of the Pacific countries to actually engage.
We also need to look at a number of specific issues that apply in particular in Papua New Guinea and Fiji and elsewhere in the Pacific, but may apply to some other of these agreements. We need to look at intellectual property right negotiations that cover not only Western technological artefacts but traditional knowledge; we need to make sure that there is a transparency of government procurement with openness to European contracts triggered at a point appropriate to the needs of the Pacific nation-states; we need to look in the case of the Pacific particularly at working visas to be made available in the European Union to Pacific island nationals for periods of at least 24 months for them to be able to work – not in the higher professions but probably working as carers and in similar occupations.
Can I say, with respect to eastern and southern Africa, that many of these points would apply there? I particularly would like to thank Mr Caspary for working together with me on this and, on the Pacific, let me say the work of Mr Audy.
But with respect to the ESA we need to look at good-governance issues in particular. This includes Zimbabwe. I do not have a problem with an interim agreement but I think a final agreement would be difficult for Parliament to accept unless there was a clear road map in the case of Zimbabwe to see an establishment of a properly democratic regime there and one that could find some way out of the difficulties it is in at the moment.
The last point I would like to make in relation to ESA, apart from to endorse the report of Mr Caspary – with some of the amendments which have been tabled – is to mention the situation of the Chagos Archipelago. It is in there because I tabled an amendment, which was accepted. Normally in these kinds of agreements we actually consult with neighbouring countries and neighbouring territories. The Chagos Archipelago is in the middle of part of this region: Seychelles-Mauritius-Madagascar. These people are currently refugees in Seychelles, and I hope that we will consult with them between now and any final agreement being made as to what the impact might be on them and on their territory should they get the right to return."@en1
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