Motion for a resolution - B5-0284/2002Motion for a resolution
B5-0284/2002

MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION

8 May 2002

further to the Commission statement
pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure
by Didier Rod, Danielle Auroi, Paul A.A.J.G. Lannoye, Nelly Maes and Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf
on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group
on preparations for the 'World Food Summit: five years later'

See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B5-0262/2002

Procedure : 2002/2551(RSP)
Document stages in plenary
Document selected :  
B5-0284/2002
Texts tabled :
B5-0284/2002
Debates :
Votes :
Texts adopted :

B5‑0284/2002

European Parliament resolution on preparations for the ‘World Food Summit: five years later’

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to the commitment made at the World Food Summit held in Rome in 1996 to ensure that everyone has access to a sufficient amount of food of adequate quality and to cut by a half the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015,

–  having regard to the agricultural agreements of Marrakesh, the resumption of agricultural negotiations since 1 January 2000 and the Ministerial Declaration adopted at the 4th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at Doha,

–  having regard to the resolution of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of 1 November 2001 on security of food supplies,

A.  whereas the right to a sufficient amount of food, which is inextricably linked to the dignity of the human person, is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and recognised in the International Convenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,

B.  whereas the number of persons suffering from malnutrition - there were 840 million in 1996 and 800 million in 2001 - is falling too slowly (8 million a year, which is well below the 20 million target) to attain the initial objective,

C.  whereas three-quarters of persons suffering from malnutrition in the world live in rural areas; whereas this is due in particular to the fact that agricultural policies are not sufficiently geared to agriculture in the poorest countries and to the scant resources allocated to supporting them, but also to the fact that primary products originating from types of agriculture with widely differing levels of productivity compete directly with each other,

D.  having regard to the experience of the European Union which has, since its inception, sought to secure its food supplies through its Common Agricultural Policy,

E.  whereas ‘food security and sustainable rural development strategies’ are one of the six priorities of the European Union’s development policy,

F.  whereas hunger and malnutrition are not due to the fact that there is simply not enough food in the world, but are the consequences of economic, agricultural and commercial policies which are promoted by international economic and financial institutions and implemented by the European Union and other organisations,

G.  whereas consistently in the Community’s agricultural, commercial and development cooperation policies is an indispensable precondition if each policy is to be effective, and this approach must have as its ultimate objective food security and the elimination of poverty,

H.  having regard to the EU’s lack of self-sufficiency in fisheries products, 50% of which come from the waters of third countries, in particular developing countries, and having regard also to the problems caused by the activities of European fleets for the security of food supplies of these countries,

I.  whereas the use of food aid which is necessary in emergencies, has been shown to have a number of adverse effects, in particular local products are replaced and local markets are disrupted, and under no circumstances can it therefore provide a lasting solution to the problems of food insecurity,

J.  whereas the struggle against poverty and food insecurity must address the structural causes of the impoverishment of the population of developing countries and access to the sources of production is one of the best means of ensuring the right to food,

K.  whereas the patenting of seeds and genetic resources intended for food and agriculture poses a threat to sustainable agricultural practices and increases the monopolies of transnational companies over technologies, seeds, genes and drugs,

L.  whereas agreements on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPs) are incompatible with the objective of security of food supplies, since they restrict the access of peoples in the South to their own natural resources,

M.  whereas the cultivation of organically-modified organisms (GMOs) does not represent a solution to famine and malnutrition, since it increases the dependence of producers and countries in the South on companies which have the technologies and the seeds and since the potential risks for health and biodiversity have not yet been assessed,

Rights

1.  Reaffirms its belief that the commitments made by the Heads of State at the World Food Summit in 1996 must be honoured;

2.  Reiterates its commitment to respect and ensure compliance with the principle that everyone everywhere is entitled to an adequate amount of healthy food, a right which is inextricably linked to the right of access to land, water and biodiversity;

3.  Reaffirms the need to recognise the right to food as a fundamental human right; calls on the states attending the summit of the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) to adopt an international code of conduct on the right to adequate food;

4.  Reaffirms the need to respect the principle of food sovereignty, under which each country must have the right freely to choose the means by which it secures food supplies in line with its collective national or regional interests, without disrupting the markets of other countries;

5.  Calls for measures to respect and enforce international humanitarian law, and recalls that, under Article 54 of additional protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions, the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is forbidden;

Global public assets

6.  Calls on the United Nations, at the FAO summit on food and the Johannesburg summit on sustainable development; to declare water and biodiversity global public assets; takes the view that water and genetic resources must be managed in a sustainable manner, must not be privatised and must be declared the common heritage of mankind and thus a global public asset;

7.  Requests the Member States of the WTO to clarify the TRIPs agreements in order to ban the patenting of life; considers that plants and seeds must be excluded from the scope of the TRIPs agreements and that a distinction must be made between a ‘discovery’ and an ‘invention’ and that only the latter term may be subject to a patent;

Combating poverty

8.  Recalls that the development of policies to fight poverty, to reduce disparities and to secure access to resources, in particular by combating gender discrimination, are indispensable preconditions for reducing famine and malnutrition;

9.  Wishes to this end that the resources available for reducing disparities be increased: debts must be cancelled, commitments regarding official development aid (ODA) respected and new resources created by appropriate taxation;

10.  Requests that small farmers be guaranteed access to the means of production (land, input, credit); calls for measures to strengthen local production networks in order to ensure the security of food supply for precarious urban population groups; considers that farming in the vicinity of urban areas must be protected from urban encroachment and that programmes to develop such farming should thus receive further support in order to increase the security of food supply for precarious urban population groups;

Sustainable agricultural practices

11.  Reaffirms the need to promote sustainable agricultural practices and to support the development of small and medium-sized agricultural holdings and local markets; calls on the Member States to allow freedom of choice as regards new technologies and to recognise the rights of states and individuals to refuse to grow genetically-modified plants by setting up GMO-free zones; calls, furthermore, on the States Parties to the FAO to declare a moratorium on the distribution of GMOs;

12.  Calls for an end to exports of pesticides to developing countries because they endanger the health of the population of these countries, pollute the environment and contaminate the groundwater and the water in general and thus compromise sustainable development;

13.  Calls on those states that have not yet done so to ratify and implement the Cartagena Protocol on Biodiversity and calls for the establishment of a hierarchy of standards which gives international conventions and their implementing protocols (including the Cartagena protocol) precedence over commercial rules;

14.  Calls for Article 27(c) of the TRIPs agreement to be revised in order to guarantee the free access of local populations to their genetic resources;

Sustainable fisheries practices

15.  Calls for the promotion of and respect for craft fishing and local aquaculture;

16.  Desires the development of sustainable fishing and calls for a precautionary approach to be adopted in managing fisheries resources in the exclusive economic zones of developing countries in order not to jeopardise the long-term development potential of local fisheries and notably small fisheries;

17.  Requests that international commercial fisheries agreements should not be signed unless they are compatible with the supply requirements of the internal market and the food security of the local population and the sustainable development of the fisheries sector of the developing countries concerned; notes that in judging whether such agreements are compatible, a prior assessment will be necessary concerning the state of resources, the total fishing activity undertaken locally (by national and foreign fleets), and thus the existence or otherwise of surplus stocks; stresses that priority access to stocks must always be granted to the small-scale fisheries sector of developing countries;

18.  Considers that the FAO should play an active role in deciding and implementing the international legal instruments indispensable for managing and controlling the exploitation of shared resources;

Promoting more equitable trade in agricultural and food products

19.  Calls for an overall assessment of the impact of trade liberalisation policies within the framework of the WTO on the food security of developing countries and on reducing poverty;

20.  Underscores the need to protect peasant farming by establishing border protection mechanisms, which means in particular strengthening the special and differentiated treatment based on GATT which was incorporated in the Marrakesh agreements and reaffirmed at Doha;

21.  Encourages the establishment of protected regional areas, on the European model, to promote intra-regional trade;

22.  Is in favour of regulating international trade in a fairer and more equitable manner, which implies restricting practices by exporting countries which damage local producers: dumping, export subsidies, disposal of surplus stocks, unjustified food aid, etc.;

23.  Condemns the Common Agricultural Policy which is based on maximising production as incompatible with the sustainable development of European countries and also with the objective of ensuring security of food supplies in developing countries;

24.  Reaffirms that food aid must be reserved for emergencies and must be granted solely in the form of donations, and that supplies must be purchased locally whenever possible, while respecting food balances and habits, and that such food aid must be accompanied by measures which allow this aid to be withdrawn while encouraging the reconstruction of the productive potential of the regions affected;

25.  Demands that the high degree of food safety required for European consumers be applied also to food supplies intended for exportation to developing countries;

26.  Calls for countries exporting agricultural produce to control production in order to ensure greater price stability and a decent revenue for producers and to restrict surpluses;

27.  Wishes the local agri-foodstuffs processing sector to be supported in the developing countries;

28.  Requests that negotiations be held on opening up the European market to agricultural products originating from developing countries, in particular under the Cotonou Agreement with the ACP countries, taking into account the risks of dependence resulting from the concentration of exports on one or two primary products;

29.  Insists that agricultural trade negotiations between the EU and its partners take into account who are the final beneficiaries in the southern countries of the growth in exports and also the need for consistency with existing preferential arrangements;

30.  Recalls that fair trade between the North and the South means paying a fair price for the resources and agricultural products of developing countries, namely a price which reflects internal and external production costs, while respecting the minimum criteria for working conditions and wage costs and environmental protection;

Health standards

31.  Wishes support to be given to developing countries to help them respect and implement health and plant health standards, in particular by enabling them to participate effectively in drawing up standards, providing them with material resources and strengthening their human resources;

32.  Instructs the representatives of the European Union to support this resolution at the ‘World Food Summit: five years after’;

33.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the FAO and the WTO.