Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, the WTO meeting in Qatar was a landmark achievement, especially for all those who realise that globalisation is one of the twenty-first century’s greatest challenges and that it is a challenge to bring it under democratic and political control. In the view of my group, globalisation desperately needs worldwide rules and global institutions. This means that globalisation can also be at the service of people, and not the other way round. As Commissioner Lamy said, Seattle two years ago failed on all kinds of fronts. It was not transparent, the groups were imbalanced and participation was not well organised. There was also a great deal of fear that, due to this failure, a number of matters which affect all of us greatly, including development, the right to adopt one’s own domestic policy, workers’ rights, and the environment, would suffer badly as a result. It is actually a real achievement for us to have witnessed true change in Qatar after those two years. It constitutes a first step towards a new WTO, in a fight to equip globalisation with rules which are at the service of human values. My group is therefore delighted with the outcome of this Fourth Ministerial Conference. Not because we are pleased with all the aspects, far from it. We shall continue to apply pressure and a whole host of things are still missing, but in essence, we made a significant step forward. This fresh step is certainly also of importance in the removal of inequalities between North and South. This is one of the most important things in the globalisation phenomenon as a whole. It is certainly striking to note what we have achieved on the WTO agenda, both in the way in which all kinds of developing countries took part jointly in the debate in a well-organised manner, and with regard to the agenda itself. We wanted a development round, and at least we can now say that there is a development agenda. And needless to say, it will be specific results which will soon be at issue. In this respect, the TRIPS account and public health care are of huge importance. It has been recognised that when it really matters, public health care and the need for the same sometimes transcend intellectual property rights, and that allowance is made for this within intellectual property rules. It is clear that this requires further elucidation, but what is important is what happened there at political level. The recognition as such will persuade many to join a modern and new worldwide WTO. Needless to say, the agreements involving the waiver for the Cotonou Agreement of the ACP and EU countries are of crucial importance, for this has helped us bring about an enormous breakthrough in our relations with the ACP countries, a breakthrough which we might not have had otherwise. In the field of environment and trade, we managed to put a number of items on the agenda of which we feared right up to the last minute that they would not make it. This is an enormous leap forward, a taboo has been shattered. It should not become green protectionism, but it is of the utmost importance for us that we have managed to bring it about. According to our group, it is a sad state of affairs that we have not actually made any real headway on the score of democracy and transparency, as already stated by Commissioner Lamy too, and on the score of workers’ rights. We may have prevented certain things from reverting back to the old ways, but we have a desperate need for more success in this area. Allow me to conclude by saying that our group has greatly valued cooperation with Commissioners Lamy and Fischler, as well as the President-in-Office, and that the Commissioner’s statement that this House must ultimately approve the Doha results, places us in a fully-fledged, grown-up democracy and a fully-fledged democratic role. We greatly appreciate this, and we rely on a very fruitful campaign in the years to come.

Political group: PSE