Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 13 January 2004 - Strasbourg

Prospects for the Doha Development Round after the WTO General Council meeting of 15 December 2003

  Plooij-van Gorsel (ELDR). – (NL) Mr President, this morning’s session seems to be turning into a private chat among the Dutch contingent, so we shall just continue. The Netherlands is pre-eminently a trading nation, after all.

Back in September, during the debate in this Parliament on the failure of the Cancún negotiating round, I made Commissioners Lamy and Fischler aware of the support of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and myself for restarting promptly while the momentum was still there. In this regard, multilateralism remains the best route to global free trade, and the conclusion of bilateral agreements is detrimental to smaller countries and developing countries. Indeed, these countries benefit from general standards applying worldwide.

The Commission sees reform of the WTO as another priority, and I agree with Commissioner Lamy on this point, because there is room for improvement in the way in which the organisation is currently functioning, which is no longer appropriate in 2004. He must bear in mind, however, that it was the members that were to blame for the failure of the negotiations. The most important thing, therefore, is to obtain constructive support among WTO members for the continuation of the Doha Development Round. That will not be easy, however, in view of the US presidential elections this year, because the campaigns will probably be full of protectionist rhetoric.

An enhanced role for the Secretariat in Geneva and for the Director-General would be a step in the right direction, in my opinion. The Director-General must be given the right of initiative in order to generate more support and increased commitment on the part of the Member States to putting the negotiations back on track; and also in order to hold the members to the agreements they have made. This enhanced mandate for the Director-General would then have to be set against democratic control by a parliamentary assembly.

In Cancún, we gave this another firm push by means of a parliamentary conference. That must continue, because this democratic control really cannot be left in the hands of the NGOs. Firstly, they lack democratic legitimacy and, secondly, Cancún showed once more that these organisations are not exactly striving for the success of the negotiating round.

The subject matter of the present agenda should stay the same, in my view, and the Singapore issues and market access play a key role in this. It is precisely developing countries that stand to benefit from a favourable investment climate, reduction in import levies and transparent legislation. The southern countries would profit from trade facilitation; indeed, 80% of all import levies are paid by the developing countries combined. The European Union must also provide other members with better information, however, as my colleague Mr van Velzen has already said. Finally, the ELDR Group gives Commissioners Lamy and Fischler a clear field for promoting their strategy and the proposed package in this sphere, and for continuing on this path.