Mr President, on behalf of the I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, on his outstanding efforts in forging a broad cross-party approach to this hugely important issue, which will have consequences for us all for many years to come. The remains unambiguously supportive of further trade liberalisation, of the strengthening of the multilateral trade system and of a broadly based negotiation covering a wide range of existing and new trade matters. Our hope is that this report, when adopted by Parliament tomorrow, will serve as a clear signal of our political backing for a comprehensive round at a crucial stage in the preparations for Seattle. This Parliament also has a central role in allaying legitimate public fears about the consequences of globalisation. In some quarters a misplaced view has arisen that the WTO is a malign agent for all the negative effects of globalisation. In truth, without the WTO we would be unable to construct the global legal and regulatory architecture which is indispensable to any coherent political response to globalisation. Without the WTO the law of the jungle and the power of might over right would prevail – hardly an outcome the critics of the WTO would welcome. For these reasons we have been active in tabling a series of amendments to the report, pushing for the development of new WTO rules in areas such as the environment, now directly affected by international trade policy. We have supported all efforts to strengthen the place of developing countries in the world trade system, not least by underlining the inescapable need for continued reform of the EU’s common agricultural policy. We have also pushed, and will continue to do so, to ensure the WTO is more transparent and the European Commission more accountable to the European Parliament in the conduct of trade policy. This must include, as a minimum, an automatic Parliamentary right to subject any WTO deal to assent and much greater access to the negotiating briefs discussed within the Council. At the same time the has resisted all attempts to burden this report with a shopping list of sector-specific requests. That is why tomorrow we will vote against those sections of the report which call for exceptional treatment for particular sectors. We must accept the consequences of our support for a comprehensive trade round. Comprehensive means all-encompassing; it does not mean riddled with exceptions. Finally, a word on China. Late on Sunday night a bilateral deal was struck between the US and China on China’s accession to the WTO. China’s entry into the WTO will, arguably, have as far-reaching an effect as anything which will take place in Seattle. It is impossible to separate the question of China’s accession to the WTO from our wider consideration of the EU’s position in Seattle. The EU is in a delicate position as the last major WTO player not to have concluded a deal with China. An optimistic interpretation would suggest that Europe is now in a strong position to exploit and build on the concessions already secured from China by Washington. However, the fact that European Commission negotiating officials were reported a mere week before the US deal as discounting the likelihood of Chinese accession any time soon may suggest that the European Union has not been negotiating as convincingly as might be hoped. There is clearly a risk that Europe will now be forced into a corner in the talks with China. The has always strongly supported Chinese accession to the WTO but not at the cost of legitimate European interests, which do not always converge with American commercial interests. I therefore call on the Commission to give an urgent account of the Chinese accession talks to Parliament, and particularly as to how they may affect our preparations for Seattle, so that Parliament can vote tomorrow on Mr Schwaiger’s report in full command of all the relevant facts. With these important caveats in mind, I would like to confirm the ’s broad support for Mr Schwaiger’s work and reiterate our warm thanks to him.

Political group: ELDR