Strasbourg, 21/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 20 October MEPs meeting for their plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg called on the European Commission to give EU industry further guarantees with regard to the trade preferences temporarily granted to Islamabad. MEPs have certain concerns about the trade preferences granted to the country to help its economic recovery following the devastating and unprecedented floods last August.
Describing the initiative taken by the EU27 as a “tragic decision for Europe”, particularly for “a certain number of countries currently experiencing serious crisis, such as Portugal, Spain and Greece”, Nun Melo (EPP, Portugal) called on the European Commission to include something in exchange for the European textiles industry. The MEP explained that trade aid to Pakistan “could have an enormous impact” on Portugal, whose textile sector accounts for 11% of exports and 25% of jobs. Niccolò Rinaldi (ALDE, Italy) also urged the Commission to propose provisions for preventing other third countries taking advantage of preferential tariffs granted to Pakistan. He said that support measures to the European textiles industry should also be envisaged so as to avoid worsening the crisis already affecting the industry.
European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht said that he was confident that the impact of aid to Pakistan on European industry would “probably be modest”. Subsequent increases in Pakistani exports will not go above €100 million, that is to say less than 0.5% of the value of European production of the products subject to tariff liberalisation. De Gucht pointed out that the measure proposed by the Commission to suspend 75 tariff lines on certain products affected 27% of total exports from Pakistan to the EU and would be limited to three years. (E.H/transl.fl)