Brussels, 18/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - "Ask more, give more: the next trade round (within the WTO) will be a defining moment in the debate on globalisation". This is the slogan that summarizes the "Policy Paper" that the Socialist Group in the European Parliament published on Wednesday on the future trade round.
Entitled "towards a new round of WTO negotiations, democracy, transparency, sustainable development, social justice", this 22-page document puts forward detailed proposals to provide the world trading system with a radically new direction. "We had both an internal debate within the Socialist Group and continuous dialogue with representatives of developing countries, trade unions, NGOs, business, and the European Commission", the group's President Enrique Baron explains in a press release. "Two years after the failure of Seattle, and before the attempt, in Qatar in November, we focused mainly on the imbalance between rich and poor countries", he added. In this paper, the Group calls for a "Global Governance Summit" in 2002 and proposes a series of measures to "regain the confidence of the general public" that it lists under eloquent chapter headings: - Making trade work of the poor; - Environmental stability and consumer protection; - Strengthening Global Governance; - Democracy in the WTO; - Reform of the TRIPS (Trade-related intellectual property) agreement; - Services; - Cultural industries; - Trade, labour rights and social development… The aim being to provide the next round with a "reforming, more ambitious" agenda to "lay down the foundations of an new international trade system".