Brussels, 02/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption, on Thursday, of the own-initiative report by Helmuth Markov (GUE/NGL, Germany) on “trade and poverty”, the European Parliament showed how keen it was to set in place new international trade rules for combating poverty, reform the WTO and cancel the debt of all developing countries subject to certain conditions of transparency and redistribution of resources.
Considering that fair trade can be an effective instrument for reducing poverty and for development, on condition that it is accompanied by “effective internal policies”, the EP expresses the wish that attaining the Millennium Development Goals should be a key chapter in the negotiations underway on the world trade system and on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Although it welcomes the decision taken by the G-8 at the Gleneagles Summit last July to completely cancel the outstanding debt of the heavily indebted poor countries, the EP stresses this initiative must be extended to all developing countries that have given concrete proof of the effort they are making towards curbing corruption, increasing transparency and optimising resources freed by debt cancellation, using them within the context of poverty reduction strategies. The EP also welcomes the asymmetrical nature of the trade links between the Union and the poor countries to the benefit of the latter. This kind of relations must serve as a base in regulating trade at global level, the Markov report stresses, calling on the Commission to defend at the WTO the setting in place of several clear coefficients for calculating the fall in customs duties, according to the situation prevailing in the groups of countries concerned.
On the subject of the Doha talks, the Parliament welcomes the progress made during the Hong Kong ministerial conference last December, mainly on special products and special safeguard mechanisms as well as special and differentiated treatment (SDT). The concerns of developing countries relating to the impact of trade liberalisation and the need that they should grant rich countries less than reciprocal effort have been “taken into account”, the report applauds, stressing, however, that “there is still much to be done” and that the “SDT must be an integral part of negotiations (…) to give the poorest developing countries sufficient time to consolidate their industrialisation effort”.
The EP also invites the governments of developing countries and less advanced agricultural exporting countries to contain the effect that an ever-growing population has on the soil, the environment and poverty, resulting in farms that are too small with insufficient production. To this end, the report recommends the development of products that can be marketed, non-agricultural and high labour intensive products, and the technological mutation of activities previously geared to subsistence. Such effort could be part of the fight against “enclave capitalism” thanks to the creation of trade-related infrastructures, such as internal transport and communications, the growing integration of the internal market and the development of new exports, including manufactured goods and tourist products.
The Markov report therefore recommends that trade policies for reducing poverty should be hinged around three main elements: - access to markets and rebalancing of rules to support internal trade and exports; - the recognition, “operationalisation” and implementation of SDT and a flexibility mechanism for development; - and the integration of the development dimension in a broad range of policies that are not “traditional trade instruments”.
Furthermore, noting that agriculture remains the main source of income and jobs in most developing countries, especially the least developed countries, the EP stresses the importance of the Union's commitment to do away with export subsidies by 2013. In this context, it calls for the abandonment of other “partially disguised” forms of export support used in certain developed countries (export credits and food aid in the United States, State farms in Australia, Canada and New Zealand) in order to correct the current North/South trade imbalance, and make the farming of poor countries more profitable.
The EP also calls on the Commission to ensure greater consistency between its trade policy and its cooperation policy, and to grant targeted support to developing countries to strength their trading ability to ensure growth in exports and imports. It recommends, moreover, that the Commission ensure public services in developing countries are maintained and developed in order to remedy poverty-related scourges such as epidemics, illiteracy, shortages of drinking water and the lack of waste water treatment. Finally, the Markov report stresses it is urgent to reform the WTO to result in greater democratic responsibility and greater transparency for better integration into the general framework of world governance.