Strasbourg, 13/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution, by 437 votes in favour, 94 against and 12 abstentions, on the basis of an own-initiative report by Spanish Socialist Javier Moreno Sanchez on the evaluation of the Doha Round further to the framework-agreement of the general council of the WTO of 1 August in Geneva. The MEPs placed development at the top of the list of priorities, reiterating their commitment to ensuring that the Doha negotiations end with the “genuine integration of developing countries (DCs), particularly the least developed countries (LDCs), into world trade.
In this context, the Parliament: called on the Commission to look into the possibility of bringing in a “development box” for the LDCs for agricultural matters, allowing them to ensure their own security of food supply and eradicate poverty; -reiterates the need for targeted technical assistance allowing the DCs fully to integrate trade into their national development policies, to increase the trade and export capacity, to improve their application of WTO rules and diversify their economy; -stresses the need to stimulate South-South trade; -calls on the Commission to take account of the erosion of preferential margins which the Doha Development Round may cause, especially on the Cotonou Agreement and the GSP, and to look into measures to guarantee the effectiveness of the preferences granted to the DCs by the EU.
On a more general aspect of the Doha Round, the MEPs encourage WTO members to continue their work in a balanced way on each of the three pillars- export subsidies, internal aid and market access- and agree on a well-balanced, ambitious proposal on the details next July ahead of the December ministerial conference in Hong Kong. The Parliament also repeats its commitment to ensuring that for the three pillars, the measures are applied at the same time for the rich countries in order to avoid a unilateral dismantling on the part of the EU, and for them to include special and differentiated treatment for the DCs. On the agriculture plank, the MEPs welcomed the fact that “the decision of the general council does not call the European agricultural model into question”. Emphasising the high level of access to the Community market for agricultural products from the DCs, the Parliament calls on the other developed countries and the emerging countries to provide greater openness of their markets to the LDCs. It also calls for negotiations on geographical indications to be taken fully into account in terms of the market access of agricultural products. On non-agricultural market access (NAMA), the EP calls on the Commission to step up negotiations, by defining an appropriate formula for removing or reducing high tariffs, tariff peaks and escalating tariffs, and stresses the need to abolish non-tariff barriers. On services, the MEPs called for “the liberalisation of services of general interest (SGIs) to be approached with caution and for services linked to health, education and the audiovisual sector, to be an exemption, as are those related to the fundamental need of the citizens such as water and energy, as the rich countries cannot force the DCs to institute a liberalisation of these services which may then lead to their total dismantling”. The amendment tabled by French Socialist Kader Arif, who feels that the issue of the SGIs should be completely aside from these negotiations and therefore called for no reference to be made to the liberalisation of SGIs in the resolution, was rejected.
The MEPs also welcomed the agreement concluded on trade facilitation “which will improve the DCs' export capacity”, and welcomed the fact that the EU has agreed to withdraw the other Singapore subjects from the round of negotiations, “thus making a gesture towards the DCs”. The Parliament also flagged up how important it feels it is for the WTO members to “go forward pragmatically” in the fields which are not covered by the decision of the general council, especially anti-dumping standards, the environmental dimension of international trade, and protection and respect for intellectual property rights, a point on which the MEPs criticised the fact that “many members of the WTO are still proving too lax in their fight against sales of pirate and counterfeit goods”. They also highlighted the need for International Labour Organisation rules (ILO) “to be respected by all the member countries of the WTO”. Lastly, stressing “the need for a profound reform of the WTO”, the Parliament welcomed the Sutherland report on the future of the WTO as “a first step in the process of reflection to create a more efficient, open, democratic and transparent organisation”.