Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-23-Speech-1-078"
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"en.20090323.14.1-078"2
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"Mr President, it is a great pleasure to be addressing the plenary of Parliament on an issue, as David Martin described it, of fundamental importance to the European Union’s relationship with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations.
I firmly believe these partnerships will only succeed if they are anchored in an enduring partnership based on trust and mutual respect. The key test of this partnership is whether we and our ACP partners have a shared vision of the future. In southern Africa, I see a region that took conflict about EPAs and turned it into dialogue, and where we have now settled major issues of concern like export taxes, infant industry protection and food security. In the Caribbean, I see a region that has set down clearly its own ambitions for an innovation-based economy. In West Africa, I see an emerging regional market access position many thought impossible, and in East Africa I see an emerging customs union that did not exist when negotiations started and is now building an EPA around their own integration plans. This looks and feels to me like the beginnings of successful partnership.
Going forward, my vision for the negotiations of full EPAs is one where each negotiation reflects and respects the regional specificity of the parties to that agreement – a flexible process. This means both looking at content – because the EPA has to work for its signatories – but also the pace of negotiations. It also means that EPAs should be dynamic and not static, able to react to future events and to account for different regional interests and needs. In this process, the Commission will, indeed, continue to inform and involve the European Parliament in a transparent way.
While we should be ambitious, there must also be no imposed dialogue, which is why issues like government procurement have already been removed from some negotiations, and Singapore issues only included when they are welcomed and wanted by the countries concerned. We will also take the time and provide the support to build up regional and national regulation as a prerequisite for further negotiation, and ‘aid for trade’ and technical assistance will be absolutely key in that regard. I can guarantee there will be no opening of public services, no pressure for privatisation. The explicit right of the ACP to regulate their own markets will be recognised and there will be no limitation of access to essential medicines or collecting seed. In fact, we would rather seek to strengthen than limit ACP rights and capacity in these areas.
All of this is overlaid by our commitment that ACP regions can draw on provisions agreed in other EPAs, so that each region can move ahead secure in the knowledge it will not be disadvantaged. So, Côte d'Ivoire can directly ask for and have anything of relevance to it that is part of the SADC negotiations and discussions or those for anywhere else. This is a key aspect of the flexibility that you asked me to provide and of allowing EPAs to replace an all-ACP trade regime with one that matches regional solutions to regional needs without undermining ACP solidarity.
The case for dynamic rather than static EPAs has been highlighted by the current crisis. We began EPA negotiations during a period of unprecedented expansion of investment, goods and services trade and soaring commodity prices. Few predicted that in a few years the global economy would fall into recession, with dramatic price falls, exchange-rate and market volatility and a credit drought that would strangle the trade finance that exporters and importers need.
We do not need a fixed deal that is redundant by the time the ink is dry on the paper. We need an agreement that establishes a relationship where institutions and monitoring can help identify and solve the problems as they emerge.
The specific problem that Erika Mann asked me about on bananas is included in the interim EPA – a guarantee of duty-free, quota-free access in that case.
As these problems emerge, we need to include safeguards and clauses that allow ACP countries to tackle any import surges, food-price pressures and fiscal crises: rendezvous clauses for specific issues, regular review clauses and, as in the Caribbean EPA, a role for parliamentary oversight and monitoring.
To return to where I began, Parliament has an historic opportunity today to give its assent to the first examples of a new generation of agreements that safeguard our special relationship with the ACP; agreements based on genuine partnership, not paternalism; that harness trade as the motor of development; that promote and encourage the regional integration that will help ACP countries flourish in a globalised world; that are flexible in terms of content, respectful of tradition, and are the latest manifestation of this long-standing trade relationship built on a respect for sovereign states. In short, they are the future and I hope, on that basis, Members will give their assent.
Before I say anything else, I would like to make one thing completely clear: I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in negotiating agreements with ACP countries that could make these countries poorer. I know that is an obvious statement, but my experience suggests that it is one that I should firmly place on the record and I cannot assume has already been widely understood. When honourable Members come to vote later on, I hope it will be on the basis of the discussion that we have had today and the arguments that have been set out here, rather than on any preconceived ideas you may have.
I believe that today’s plenary session is an important step forward on economic partnership agreements (EPAs). You will be asked for your assent on the full EPA in the Caribbean and the interim EPA with Côte d’Ivoire. You have tabled no less than eight sets of draft resolutions and oral questions reflecting, in my view, the strength of parliamentary involvement and opinion on EPAs. I want to pay tribute, and place on record that tribute, to the huge effort that the Committee on International Trade and the Committee on Development have put into the debate on this issue.
Over the months, I have listened carefully to the views expressed, and my aim is to set out the case for EPAs and to dispel the myths around them so that every Member is able to cast an informed vote when the time comes. I believe that what we have before us are good agreements that support economic development and integration in the ACP and provide stability in these economically turbulent times. They are partnership agreements founded on the shared goal of development that make trade the servant of this objective and not the reverse. Most of all, they are agreements that provide the opportunity for ACP States to lift their citizens out of poverty through the dignity of their own labour and the genius of their own ideas.
There is a perception that in EPAs the European Union is breaking with the past and unilaterally trying to redefine the EU-ACP partnership. It is true, of course, that EPAs are different from the Lomé and Cotonou Conventions that embodied the Union’s relations with the ACP for 30 years, but the unilateral preferences that characterise those conventions became open to challenge in the World Trade Organisation by other developing countries. The dilemma that we faced was how to safeguard the development requirements of the ACP while respecting international rules and, I would add, moral obligations.
The answer was twofold: ‘Everything But Arms’ for the least-developed countries, and economic partnership agreements for the developing countries in the ACP. The common theme that stretches all the way back to the first Lomé Convention was trade. Trade has always been the defining factor of EU-ACP relations, and what was once confined to unilateral trade preferences for commodities and raw materials in the early days of Lomé has now been replaced by more diversified trade in manufactured goods, services and ideas in the 21st century.
EPAs offer the ACP the best ever access to EU markets and continue our commitment to provide opportunities for economic development. Regional integration within and between ACP markets has also been a key objective of this process and a subject that has attracted – not surprisingly – a lot of attention in oral questions. Our global economy means that size has become more important, a lesson that we have learnt in the European Union. By simplifying trade rules and replacing the complex maze of bilateral agreements with a small number of region-to-region trade relationships, the ACP can create bigger regional markets that are more attractive to the investment which developing markets need in order to create jobs and growth.
The agreements are of course a two-stage process: interim agreements to ensure we do not face the WTO challenge and to create some breathing space for the second stage, the negotiation of full EPAs. The run-up to the December 2007 deadline for interim EPAs has given rise to an impression of steam-rollering ACP concerns, but I want to reassure Parliament that these interim agreements are only a temporary solution to safeguard and improve ACP access to European Union markets.
I inherited this file at an advanced stage of negotiation. Since then, I have met a large number of ACP ministers and representatives and other stakeholders in the EPA process. I have heard them and I have listened to them. One thing is clear: all put ACP development at the centre of EPAs. EPAs are, if you like, where trade meets development. And that means development must be the foundation of our trading relationship based on frank and open dialogue."@en1
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