Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-12-14-Speech-1-113"
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"en.20091214.16.1-113"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Doha talks were opened in 2001 to correct the imbalances, in fact the injustices, of the international trade system that was introduced following the Uruguay Round, when the WTO was created.
During these negotiations, the European Union must show what it is doing to ensure that trade rules will help improve this situation in the future. It is on this basis that each of the following points of discussion must be considered:
on agriculture: honouring the July 2008 commitments; concluding the negotiations on procedures; guaranteeing, in particular, special and differential treatment, respect for special products, and safeguard mechanisms; developing agricultural support in accordance with sustainable agriculture and food security;
on NAMA products: asking developing countries for tariff reductions – I am finishing here – that are in line with their level of development;
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on services: protecting the right of every country to continue to regulate its public services.
It was thus acknowledged that the Uruguay Round had not kept all the promises it had made concerning developing countries, and that the countries of the South were at an unfair disadvantage where trade rules were concerned, particularly in the field of agriculture, because these trade rules allow the richest countries both to protect their market and to continue to fund their production, including that intended for export, bankrupting many farmers of the South in the process. Cotton has come to symbolise this situation.
In opening the ‘development round’, the WTO members have therefore committed themselves to amending multilateral trade rules in order to ensure that trade really does benefit economic and social development in every country, on every continent.
Thus we should always remember that this round of negotiations is not a round like any other, and that, even if, as in all negotiations, everyone is waiting for progress to be made on the issues that concern them – for industrialised countries, that means industrial products and services – it was agreed, from the outset, that this round was, first and foremost, about restoring the balance in favour of developing countries.
Today, in the wake of the Seventh Ministerial Conference, as before it, negotiations have essentially stalled on the slopes of Capitol Hill in Washington, just as they sank, in the past, in the sands of Cancún, and, back then, this was largely due to the demands made by the European Union.
Having demanded too much during the negotiations, industrialised countries have thus jeopardised the final outcome of the round of negotiations and the credibility even of the WTO. Everyone is focusing solely on personal goals instead of on the overall goal, which is to create a multilateral trade framework that is based on fairer rules to encourage fairer trade, and which promotes sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.
The first outcome of this stalemate is the increase in bilateral trade agreements, which are often even more unfavourable to the countries of the South. This is a step backwards.
The European Union must therefore adopt a clear position. The priority is to conclude this round as a development round and not to try to outdo one another where industrial products and services are concerned. These negotiations must not be approached in a conventional and narrow-minded manner, where everyone is simply out for themselves.
This leads to a deadlock and makes one lose sight of the main issue: the need to create a new way of regulating the international trade system that will form part of the new global governance that everyone has called for, particularly since the G20, in order to address the real challenges of today, which are fair development on all continents, the eradication of poverty, food security, respect for social rights and decent work, and the fight against climate change."@en1
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