Archived press release

Europe unites to condemn Mandelson's WTO agenda

1 June 2006

Over 70 European organisations today(1 June) demonstrate their opposition to the EU's trade policy through an open letter to Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and member states' governments published as an advertisement in the Financial Times.

Theorganisations have placed the advert to highlight the threat from the EU's trade policy to development, jobs and the environment. The open letter - entitled `Not in Our Name' - stresses that Peter Mandelson does not enjoy the support of civil society in the member states of the EU and questions his legitimacy in pursuing the EU's anti-development agenda at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) any further.

Glen Tarman, coordinator of the Trade Justice Movement, said:

"In 2005 millions of people, in Europe and around the world, demanded that unfair trade rules be changed to help make poverty history. Yet at the WTO Hong Kong meeting in December rich countries, including the EU, blocked the way to trade justice. And now the EU is still pushing for a bad deal that will favour the rich over the interests of the world's poor. Peter Mandelson does not have the support of EU citizens when he continues to push a European position in the talks that will not bring trade justice."

Friends of the Earth Trade Campaigner Eve Mitchell said:

"The EU is acting in the name of Brussels-based corporate lobbyists, not in the name of the millions of Europeans who have demanded trade justice. We want a trade deal which meets the needs of the most vulnerable people and protects the environment. Peter Mandelson and his EU colleagues are betraying the world's poor."

The WTO is fast approaching the deadline it has set itself to gain an agreement for an eventual conclusion of the Doha Round of trade talks. While the end of July is the official target for agreeing modalities for a deal, government delegations are currently in the middle of a six-week period of intensive negotiations which is seen as the last chance for a consensus. Although recent anti-development interventions from the EU and USA have soured relations in both the agricultural and industrial negotiations, the pressure to do a deal at all costs, regardless of whether it is in the interests of the world's poor, remains high.

www.foe.co.uk/resource/letters/letter_to_mandelson.pdf (PDF)

Notes

1. In April the UK parliament's International Development Committee (IDC) blamed the EU under Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson for the current crisis at the WT O, in a report (published 27 April 2006) entitled `The WTO Hong Kong Ministerial and the Doha Development Agenda'. The report accuses the EU of employing negotiating tactics that have stalled the Doha Round of trade talks to the point of failure. The IDC accuses the EU of acting against the interests of developing countries and "going against the spirit of the Round", and calls on Peter Mandelson to change his negotiating position if the EU is not to become "the cause of failure" for the Round as a whole.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust