David Martin (S&D). - Madam President, I see this proposal as being about fairness. I entirely reject my Conservative colleague’s rather naive view of rampant unbridled liberalisation and the idea that, simply by virtue of the European Union doing the right thing, our foreign competitors will also do the right thing.

As others have said, this is not a report about protectionist measures. We are not encouraging the closure of public procurement markets in the European Union, and we do not see this as an over-aggressive tool to force market liberalisation abroad. It is simply about rebalancing our trading relationships where they have tilted too far from the European Union towards our competitors. Indeed, under these proposals, the Commission is required to investigate and support claims of a substantial lack of reciprocity before Member States can act. So this is not a tool which can be used on the whim of protectionists.

I should also like to add that there are important measures in this which balance what we have just done in the previous debate and bring our foreign trade rules into line with the internal market rules. Of course, as others have said, it is important to add that this does not apply to the least-developed countries. This is not a tool attacking the poorest in the world.