MEPs adopted an own-initiative report on fair trade development urging the Commission to issue a recommendation on Fair Trade, recognising that a non-binding legislative act is the appropriate form at this point in time and would not carry the risk of over-regulation.
The report stresses that the most significant part of the increase in Fair Trade sales has been achieved with respect to labelled products and that Fair Trade labelling initiatives have been developed in most European countries. The House calls on the Commission to undertake a study to examine how Fair Trade could develop into a model for sustainable trade policy which would be capable of stimulating balanced North-South trade, and identify the obstacles to trade which impact most seriously on the world's poor.
Parliament calls on the Commission to recognise that there are also other credible schemes that, alongside the Fair Trade movement and under the umbrella of the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL), collaborate to define social and environmental standard-setting in third-party certification.
MEPs call on the Commission and Member States to take appropriate measures to ensure that consumers have access to all information they need in order to make informed choices. Parliament believes that consumers must have the right to access quickly product information, which must be easily comprehensible and presented in a transparent way.
The House calls on the Commission to liaise with the international Fair Trade movement in supporting clear and widely-applicable criteria against which consumer assurance schemes can be assessed, underpinning consumer confidence in such schemes and consolidating the Fair Trade product sectors. The House also calls on the Commission to launch specific "calls for proposals" with objectives targeted at Fair Trade in order to raise consumer awareness, support assurance schemes and labelling, as well as systematic data collection and assessment of effects across the EU.
Parliament also urges the Commission to develop a coherent policy for the promotion and protection of small and marginalised producers, including Fair Trade, incorporating their views as well as the views of the producers of other independently monitored trading initiatives contributing to raising social and environmental standards, in bilateral, regional and multilateral trade negotiations, such as the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Finally, the report calls on the Commission to take the Fair Trade and other social and environmental trading approaches into account when formulating the EU trade policy.
