Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 102)
MR NICK
MABEY, DR
PAUL JEFFERISS
AND MR
PETER HARDSTAFF
TUESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1999
80. Can I ask you a little more about the Performance
Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office and how much you know about
its remit; how much you know about its expertise; and how much
you know about the extent to which sustainability is the baseline
for what it does, as opposed to the development of trade policy?
(Mr Mabey) The Performance Innovation Unit usually
takes a lot of secondees to do its reports, and certainly intervied
a lot of NGOs for the positions. Currently I think there are three
outside people on the team and two civil servants on the team
doing the study. The terms of reference which I have seen were
limited to a narrow consideration of not what it called "non-trade
issues" but ethical issues which are environment, consumer
and labour issues. It was really looking to develop a set of principles
to guide negotiations on these issues in the trade area. My initial
reaction to that would be, the main issues about getting those
issues dealt with properly at WTO are about the dealings with
the trade system, and how the trade system has been abused by
developed countries in order to benefit their exporters, and that
is why we have hostility to non-trade issues and a culture of
rejection building up. The PIU study is not about strategy on
that broad level, it is about a much narrower study about a small
subsector. In that sense it might not achieve its goals.
81. Are you saying there is not anything which
is adequately underpinning the basis on which negotiations will
go forward in respect of this trade Round?
(Mr Mabey) Yes, I have seen no analysis or strategic
assessment which guides the choice of subjects, their prioritisation,
what is necessary in the ministerial declaration at Seattle, what
action should be taken after the ministerial declaration at Seattle
to ensure we get all we need. Those would be the basic parts of
a strategy to achieve environmental goals for which the Commission,
to an extent, is being applauded for its environmental position
from the environmental community. The key part of that is: do
we think it is serious about achieving its goals? The answer would
be: given the level of preparation—no.
(Mr Hardstaff) What we have tended to get over the
past few months are fairly broad assertions that further liberalisation
will lead to economic growth which will benefit all. When it comes
down to detail there is much less coming out of government and
there are a great deal of questions that need answering about
exactly what the objectives are, and how certain policy measures
would achieve those objectives: an obvious one is perhaps investment
and whether liberalisation is actually related to increasing foreign
investment. On those detailed issues we do not feel that the questions
are being answered and the analysis has been done and the policies
formulated to try and address those issues.
82. If I was to ask you what your perception
is of the UK's approach to developing an integrated and coherent
strategy, how would you sum up your reply to that?
(Dr Jefferiss) It is too little and too late to be
going into negotiations of such far-reaching significance for
all aspects of quality of life—social, environment and economic.
Even the economic consequences of the trade negotiations have
not been adequately assessed.
83. If I could bring you back to the comments
you were making earlier on about the way forward and the lack
of capacity building in terms of developing countries who want
various issues to be address. How would you link that to what
you seem to be saying—which is that the way forward needs
to be based on values which do not seem to be at the fore in terms
of developing the strategy? Do we not need some kind of capacity
building in the UK in respect of the way in which we bring in
sustainability issues, which is what we are concerned about here,
so that we do not have the too little, too late syndrome. How
do we actually get at the core, the values of sustainability,
which would then bring about the questions which would bring the
answers on how to do it and the detail it needs to be done in?
(Dr Jefferiss) I think you would need a combination
of a cultural shift in various government departments; explicit
obligations placed on various government departments; and resources
allocated to various government departments to implement the consequences
of any cultural shift. Those resources might take the form of
money; they would certainly take the form of expert staff, expertise
and numbers. There are a whole range of ways in which they could
be brought forward.
Chairman
84. Does the right cultural attitude exist in
any Western developed country?
(Mr Mabey) I have been travelling around Europe and
talking to my European colleagues and I cannot say we are particularly
encouraged by anybody. It is different because of the way ministries
are put together in different countries. Some countries have less
of a Whitehall box mentality. I must admit, in the MAI we seemed
to get better joined-up government across Europe because it was
ad hoc. Because it happened so fast people broke the rules and
talked to each other. It seems in trade, because people have been
discussing it for so long they have managed to build very big
barriers between things like trade, environment and development.
There is not the same free flow of information you were getting
in the MAI negotiations, even though the subject has a lot more
history. I would echo what Paul has said, if you set the objectives
you have to provide the resources. There are a lack of resources.
There are a lack of experts in government on this. There is a
lack of prioritisation inside departments, including the Department
of the Environment, to support this issue. The fact is that NGOs
are providing the vast amount of resources going into this. That
is not sustainable because we are eventually excluded from the
negotiations, as we should be. The people who are carrying forward
the British public's interests in this area are likely to be the
Department of the Environment or their European counterparts.
They are there and the question is: are they going to deliver?
I think that comes back on the strategy. Eventually they will
be asked for an endorsement of whatever comes out of the next
Round by Parliament, perhaps a de facto endorsement anyway
by people of what they are doing; and we do not see that the Government
is facing up to what the trade-offs might be. Are they going to
come back and say, "Sorry, we didn't get 50 per cent of what
you considered to be the ultimate bottom line to defend environmental
legislation, but we still think it's good because we got some
trade things instead". We are not anywhere near having the
basis for that discussion. The debate is so immature, but it is
a discussion which should be had and should be posed to ministers.
(Mr Hardstaff) Trade policy making in the UK must
be much more systematic, as Paul was saying, both in terms of
capacity and technical expertise, and also in terms of embedding
it into a proper process. Current inadequacies are very much reflected
in the lack of parliamentary oversight of trade policy making.
We have much more oversight of, say, national tax issues than
we do of these international issues which have just as much impact
on the way we can regulate and formulate policy.
Chairman: You are absolutely right there.
Joan Walley
85. It is one thing to have oversight, it is
another thing to have input into something. In terms of Article
6 of the post-Amsterdam Treaty, shifting this discussion to the
European agenda, what more could be done within the different
DGs to make sure there is this link-up and joined-up thinking
between trade and environment?
(Dr Jefferiss) We think what could happen and should
happen soon is for trade and competition to undertake an environmental
integration strategy. Other sectors have already been invited
to do that and have begun to do that, although they are very much
at the start of the process. It has begun to happen for energy,
transport, agriculture and so on; but a notable absence, particularly
in light of the upcoming negotiations, are trade and competition
which seems very unfortunate.
Dr Iddon
86. You have demonstrated already this morning
that the trade negotiations at Seattle are going to be complicated
enough, but the EU is seeking to include investment in this Round
of talks as well. Do you think the lessons we have perhaps learned
from the previous OECD MAI negotiations have been adequately absorbed
in order to proceed with investment talks at Seattle?
(Mr Mabey) The simple answer is, no. One of the more
illuminating responses to the Committee's own investigation to
the MAI from the government was that there was a feeling there
was no need for enhanced rules on investor protection and liberalisation
in order to stimulate FDI. I have been participating around the
world in seminars with developing country officials on investment
agreements in both China and in Cairo. My impression from talking
to people from many different countries is: there is no interest
in developing countries for new investment protection agreements
to attract investment to their country. It is not the priority
of the world's agenda in this area, and that was the big lesson
of the MAI.
87. For the MAI talks baseline proposals were
made—do you have any feel for what baseline proposals might
have been made for the Seattle talks, and are there going to be
any significant differences?
(Mr Mabey) The current (not particularly clear) EU
proposals show it would probably be limited to foreign direct
investment; and therefore not include portfolio investment. It
would basically have a similar scope in terms of performance requirements.
Unlike the MAI, some of the other issues, like privatisation,
are unclear. It is also very unclear whether it would be a bottom-up
agreement, i.e that people opt into it; or, if it is a top-down
agreement, i.e. people opt out of sectors—and what the conditions
for further liberalisation will be. If it is going to be of use
to the European Union, which is a capital exporter, obviously
it will have to promote liberalisation and provide greater protection,
otherwise there will be no point in doing it from a narrow economic
self-interest point of view. We have to expect it is not going
to be as benign as the Commission is trying to say it is—because
there would be no point negotiating it if it was going to be as
benign as the European Commission said it was going to be.
88. Do you think there is room for including
investment talks at Seattle, or do you think it would be better
if we just stuck to trade negotiations?
(Mr Mabey) I personally do not think the WTO should
be given this competency. The most important things that need
to be discussed about investment are about regulation, and the
WTO is not a very good regulatory body. It has not got a culture
of regulation. If you talk to trade negotiators, they are not
regulators, they are a very different type of people. They have
a set of assumptions and principles in the WTO that, for me, go
against some of the main tenets of sustainable development. I
would prefer to see us talking about this inside the Commission
on Sustainable Development, leading to Rio+10 in 2002. There is
a place to talk about what is a priority for this agenda, and
I would say it was: limiting investment incentives; rules on investor
behaviour; stopping deregulation to attract investment; and support
for the least developed countries to attract investment. Those
are the messages I get back from people about what needs to be
done.
Joan Walley
89. Could I just turn back to the issue of trade
policy and the UK/EU environmental agenda? You have given us papers
that you have submitted to the Committee, but could I just ask
you to summarise, in terms of the EU environmental agenda for
the rounds, which you have described as being limited, what you
think should be added to the list of issues?
(Mr Hardstaff) I think that one of the fundamental
issues within the environment debate on trade is that it tends
to be ghettoised, so the EU sees the environment agenda as a sustainability
impact assessment, and the three core issues of multilateral environment
agreements, process and production methods and the precautionary
principle, whereas many of the NGOs are saying that this ghettoising
of issues is missing the point because the environment agenda
is much broader. There are major environmental impacts in the
European Union agricultural policy; there are environmental issues
concerning intellectual property rights; there are environmental
issues concerning fisheries and also with the potential for forests
liberalisation negotiations. These are all areas which have broad
environmental impacts, not even taking into account the proposed
negotiations on investment and government procurement. There is
a whole range of environmental issues. One of the problems is
that the rest of the trade agenda is not seen as an environmental
issue or a developmental issue. These negotiations tend to get
put in boxes so, although it is good that the European Union are
pursuing the multilateral environment agreement agenda and the
precautionary principle, they are severely lacking when it comes
to basing trade policy on an understanding of the environmental
implications of, for example, agriculture.
90. In view of that could you suggest what kind
of recommendations you would want us to make in respect of the
relationship between the MEAs and the WTO and in relation to who
has overall responsibility or how did responsibilities get shared
out, the different make-up of the different bodies? How should
we be clarifying the relationship so that environmental considerations
override everything?
(Mr Mabey) Even WWF would not decide that environmental
considerations should override everything. Our preference is to
have an agreement in the WTO which spells out the relationship
with MEAs in a vital way, which involves some boring technical
things: defining an MEA, defining at what level of parties does
it gain credibility, is it regional, is it a multilateral MEA,
and how disputes, which can be honest, and there are honest disputes
about implementation of MEAs and their provisions and whether
these have caused some trade distortions, but the way of resolving
that is inside the mechanism which involves both people from MEAs
and from the trade community when the trade community has an interest.
In some places they will not have an interest because countries
will have unambiguously waived their rights under the WTO in order
to sign an MEA, and that is what usually happens with straightforward
trade measures. That is levying a trade sanction if someone has
not fulfilled their obligations. That is a clear case. That is
dealt with by an MEA. Some other things, like implementation,
like the effect of, say, Japanese car regulations on the trade
of automobiles under Kyoto Protocol, are more complex. That needs
a more discursive body. The most important thing however is to
get this explicitly on the agenda at Seattle, and the worry we
have is that some of these issues will not be explicitly addressed,
and to do something as radical as defying a new agreement with
WTO we need an explicit mention of this, not a vague commentary
that the environment should be recognised in the coming negotiations,
which has been mentioned to me as one of the potential outcomes
and it should be signalled that it is not acceptable and we will
need a more radical approach to protect it.
Mr Gerrard
91. Dr Jefferiss, I think you have mentioned
TRIPs in your presentation at the beginning. You commented on
what the Minister had said to us last week, I think with some
approval. How far do you think that is the view across Europe,
the view that you were approving of?
(Mr Hardstaff) If I may I will answer that. What we
have to go on is what the Commission has put down in writing and,
to quote the Commission's paper on the agenda for the millennium
round, as it calls it, it says, "that the present achievements
and the current transitional periods must not be re-opened on
the occasion of new negotiations," as far as TRIPs is concerned.
That to us is saying that it does not want to negotiate the current
articles on patenting of life forms, and it does not want to negotiate
extending the implementation period, both of which are key issues
for developing countries. The Africa Group of WTO members has
submitted a paper explicitly asking for re-negotiation of these
aspects of the agreement, so that is why we felt that Mr Caborn's
statement, that it would be foolish not to open these up for re-negotiation
was, positive. We hope that that view will be impressed upon the
European Union partners when it comes to defining any agenda for
reviewing and hopefully re-negotiating the TRIPs agreement.
92. What do you think needs to be done? How
do we move towards getting better compatibility between TRIPs
and conventional biological diversity? Is that something that
should form part of these negotiations?
(Mr Hardstaff) Yes, I think it should. There are key
divergences between both the spirit and the letter of the Convention
on Biological Diversity and the spirit and the letter of the intellectual
property rights agreement. The conventional on biological diversity
calls for benefit sharing from biological resources and calls
for a recognition of indigenous rights over biological resources.
The TRIPs agreement on the other hand explicitly requires a regulatory
system that provides for private ownership of biological resources,
and has no provisions on requiring benefit sharing, and has no
provisions requiring prior informed consent from, for example,
indigenous communities, to use biological resources which they
have used and developed over many years. They is a clear conflict
between the spirit and the letter of these two agreements yet
and our governments have signed up to them both. That relationship
needs dealing with. Obviously we feel that the biodiversity convention
is an extremely important instrument and needs to be recognised
and fulfilled, and the TRIPs agreement is undermining that so
that relationship does need addressing.
93. Can I just go back to a point which Joan
Walley was raising about the relationship with MEAs and you made
it quite clear, Mr Mabey, that you want to see that very explicit
in the agenda for Seattle, not just something that is vaguely
mentioned. Do you think we should be looking for any institutional
changes to try to get that coherence? Is WTO the right place or
is there maybe a case for some wider forum, UN bodies, or UNEP,
to be involved?
(Mr Mabey) If there is a WTO agreement on the relationship
with MEAs it will have to involve those bodies. That will be part
of the agreement, when questions are raised about the things people
are doing, and they say, "Well, we are doing this underneath
an MEA; therefore it is fine. Therefore you will not go down the
normal WTO route; you will go into this agreement", and then
other people would have to be called in to have processes to deal
with that. That is the kind of thing people are looking at so
that it will basically short-circuit the WTO process into a place
where they have to discuss it with other bodies and the principles
of those bodies will come into line, people will have agreed that
as a process. It has to be inside the WTO; it is a WTO process
for short-circuiting. If you have something outside the WTO then
the WTO process will be going on while you are trying to discuss
somewhere else. One of the most important things is to bring the
way environmental treaties do things, which is a little less legalistic,
into the overly legalistic (in a counter-productive sense) WTO,
which we have seen over the last five years raising sometimes
rather bizarre disputes and making monumental decisions in dispute
panels based on subtle inflections of language which could no
way be called robust policy. The latest balance of payments case
settled on India is a classic example of where they set the macro-economic
policies of India based on an interpretation of basically one
word in a WTO agreement, causing massive distrust in developing
countries which will doubtless make it even harder for us to get
environment agreed by India.
Mr Shaw
94. My question is on core environmental principles.
The United Kingdom argues that the precautionary principle is
embodied within the WTO principles already. What refinement is
sought by the EU?
(Mr Mabey) The precautionary principle at the moment
is in a very weak state. Basically it says that if you are uncertain
you can put in, say, a trade ban on the product you are uncertain
about while you are collecting new evidence, but there is this
underlying assumption that the collection of new scientific evidence
will occur to the point where it is a sufficient basis on which
to make a decision. I have referred the Committee to a recent
report published by the ESRC on the GM issue and the role of science
in public decision making, and some work the WWF has done as well
on similar issues. Science is not the sole arbiter of good public
policy decisions when uncertainty exists. There are significant
bodies of work in decision theory, economics and sociology that
show the steps you need to take to transfer the information scientists
produce, that type of information, into policy relevant information
to take into account issues of distribution of risk, of costs
and benefits, of irreversibility of actions, and of the likelihood
of real uncertainty as ignorance as opposed to a probabilistic
type of uncertainty, which is embedded in the scientific approach.
It is a very well defined, logical, academically sound solution
which can be transferred into rules on proof, on rules involved
in decision making, on rules on how impacts on producer interests
and consumer interests should be balanced given potential types
of impact. I think there is an awful lot of work to be done. There
is a lot of work to be taken from the academic sphere which has
not yet reached the policy sphere. That work basically says that
the current definition on sound science, the American definition,
is not credible in academic or intellectual terms as the correct
basis for making decisions.
(Mr Hardstaff) Can I just add to what Nick was saying?
There is a contradiction between the Government saying that it
sees the precautionary principle as being adequately enshrined
within what is called the SPS agreement on food safety and standards,
and the fact that its own legal advice says that it is not able
to implement a general precautionary moratorium on the commercial
planting of GM crops in this country. We have a situation where,
at the moment our Government is unable to regulate GMOs effectively
so our regulation of and process for testing GMOs is based on
a voluntary agreement and is very much in the hands of industry.
In terms of enshrining the precautionary principle in WTO rules
we need to ensure that such legitimate action, whilst further
scientific evidence is gathered, is ensured. I think our Government's
position on the precautionary principle is slightly contradictory
with what is happening in the real world.
95. Do you think we ought to build in other
environmental principles such as "the polluter pays"
or critical ecological limits?
(Mr Mabey) Prior informed consent is a key environmental
principle which should inform the whole of the agreement. That
is currently under attack. Again the WTO is being used to chill
the environmental agreement. It is like a POPs agreement where
prior informed consent is a key principle, and general issues
of information, the Aarhus convention, which has had an interesting
impact on UK law on the freedom of information, again is a key
principle to go in there with "the polluter pays". As
for environmental limits, that is for MEAs to do; it is not for
the WTO to do, but they have to respect it. Again that comes back
to respecting the MEA's jurisdiction.
Dr Iddon
96. Finally, can we look at hoping for some
transparency in the whole of these processes we have been examining
this morning. Do you think that you have been inadequately consulted
or at least seen the details involved in the preparation for Seattle
both in the United Kingdom and throughout the European Union?
(Mr Mabey) I think we have seen a great increase in
basic transparency and consultation in terms that we have sat
round tables with people and talked to them. The slightly perverse
outcome of that is that it makes us realise how little influence
that has had on the actual detailed policy outcomes, and how little
adequate preparation has been made either in the United Kingdom
or in Europe to deal with the wider issues. I suppose it has fulfilled
its remit in that it has exposed the flaws in the policy making
process, but we have not moved to the next stage where that process
would help make up for some of the inadequacies in the policy
process. It really was just a matter of talking more about what
they were going to do.
(Mr Hardstaff) I am fairly new to the whole consultation
process of involvement with civil servants and governments, but
something that has struck me during this consultation period is
that it is very much a process of meeting civil servants and ministers,
raising concerns and then those concerns being dealt with by the
Government justifying its current line. That is where we have
got to. The positions of the United Kingdom Government and of
the European Union have stayed pretty consistent over the past
six months and probably longer despite the whole consultation
process, so the question is: has the consultation process made
any real difference? At the moment I cannot really see it. I suspect
that some changes have occurred over a much longer period of time.
97. Can you see any evidence that the World
Trade Organisation has developed listening mechanisms so that
NGOs and other representatives of civil society's views can be
heard?
(Mr Mabey) Again I think we have to define what the
WTO is. It is a membership organisation. The most important conversations
you have with the WTO are in capitals and with representatives
of member states. The secretariat have become more open and they
have been organising better events and I think they are trying
to open up the process, but that only means as far as the member
state's let them, and it is important not to let the member states
off the hook in any country for the fact that they are primary
arbiters of how that system works. One thing I would say, to go
back to the United Kingdom situation, is that we tried to get
this innovation of joint ministerial meetings because we thought
there was a lack of joined-up government. Unfortunately this seems
to have descended into slightly ritualistic process, sitting round
the table with lots of ministers and lots of members of civil
society in business and really talking about very little. That
could just be because it has not been designed properly or it
could be intended to be like that.
Chairman
98. It sounds as though the meetings are too
big.
(Mr Mabey) They are badly designed. I think they could
be made smaller, they could be made to run in a more focused way.
We have tried to make them more focused. The ministers arrive
and they leave, instead of staying for 15 minutes to talk among
themselves rather than writing letters to each other. The point
of these meetings was to highlight political problems which were
going to happen and have to be dealt with by the politicians,
not by the civil servants, and it is a key task if the United
Kingdom is going to come back with an agreement that contains
some things we do not like, and the Government is going to be
asked why that was a good deal and we have to prepare the ground
and be involved in that, not just bump people into it. We would
just like to highlight that we think it was a good idea but we
would like to see it actually work and deliver what it was meant
to deliver.
(Mr Hardstaff) It is very encouraging that the WTO
has begun to become more open, they have released a lot more documents,
but the crucial point is about the member states and certainly
for us it is crucial that in the United Kingdom's procedures there
is an opportunity for the involvement of Parliament, civil society
and the public in gaining a better understanding of the objectives
and ultimately the mandate on trade policy, so I think the fundamental
point is that we need better processes for parliamentary oversight
and civil society involvement in the UK.
Dr Iddon
99. How would you measure your access to the
mechanisms which we have been discussing this morning at an EU
level and at a world level compared with the access that industry
and business have to these mechanisms?
(Mr Mabey) I would say that business pays to get better
access at Seattle; we know that. They have got access to a lot
more places and a lot more forums because they are big paying
events. They seem to have better access in terms of documentation
and certainly in terms of the positive nature of government interventions
at their events. If you see the latest Transatlantic Business
Dialogue transcripts, about the precautionary principle, some
of the statements made there by Government were very warm. One
thing we have seen throughout this process is comments by respected
international states, people involved in trade, and of course
the former head of the OECD and the former head of GATT saying
that governments are listening too much to their business and
if they listen too much to their business they will not be able
to take broad society along with them and have broad society backing
them in the WTO. This is the thing that trade negotiators are
missing. They think the "enemy" is protectionism threatening
their organisation and their objectives. That is not the "enemy".
The enemy to them is the fact that they are seen to be producing
unfair results and that perception is in developing countries
and it is at home among people with different interests from straight
economic interests. That is the challenge they have to live up
to, the political and democratic challenge, and one which I do
not think they have fully grasped because they are still thinking
about the Uruguay round and how they did that and not about the
WTO.
(Mr Hardstaff) A very interesting and very inciteful
comment that Mr Caborn made in his evidence was that the one thing
which will undermine both the negotiation and the institution
itself is if people believe they are not getting a reasonable
and fair deal out of it. As far as many NGOs are concerned that
is the situation we are in now.
Chairman: It is their key point.
Dr Iddon: Finally, if each of you had
a key message to tell the negotiators how things could be improved,
what would it be?
Chairman
100. What you just said.
(Mr Hardstaff) I am going to cheat and say I have
two key messages. One is that trade policy is not just liberalisation.
It is a mix of regulation and liberalisation to manage trade for
people and the environment. The other is that trade policy is
not an end in itself. It is a means to an end and we have to focus
on what the objective of this is, which is improving people's
quality of life.
(Mr Mabey) Make sure you have public approval for
what you are proposing, because at the moment I would say no country
has public approval for what it is proposing, whatever its so-called
democratic foundations, and make sure the rest of global governance,
environment, labour, and so on, moves at the same pace as economic
governance. That is how you get sustainable development and a
balanced approach. That is not happening but there is Earth Summit
III or II, however it is counted, in 2002, happening before the
end of the round even at its shortest timescale, which will provide
a pretty solid metric for countries' commitment to the balancing
international institutions before the end of the round. I think
there is a very interesting timing coming up in the next few years.
Mr Blizzard
101. I have just a couple of points on which
you could perhaps send us some further information. You mentioned
what you perceived to be the lack of our Government's preparation
for this round in terms of actually defining what the environmental
considerations should be. Have you produced a set of particular
detailed questions which you think need addressing, and what you
think the answers should be? Secondly, you mentioned when we were
talking about the precautionary principle a new layer of that
beyond science. You said it was not just a question of coming
up with the scientific information but this had to be translated
through some other methodology which you said had academic respectability
in order to make sense of that science. I wonder if you have any
more information on that or you could tell us where we should
go for that because that was new to me?
(Mr Mabey) We will be happy to send that on.
Chairman: It is certainly my experience in government
that the science comes straight to the politicians with no meaningful
layer between them, either on the decision theory or risk theory
or whatever, to explain in meaningful terms to a wider audience
exactly what the science is saying.
Dr Iddon: That is why you need more scientists
in the House.
Chairman: We do, but we also need this
layer of methodology between the two.
Joan Walley
102. All of you rest on the issue of having
to have the support of people in order to go along with what has
been suggested. In terms of the democratic deficits that everybody
is really experiencing, particularly across the European Union,
how would you say that actually fits into this whole debate and
what basis is there for that in terms of these negotiations which
are just about to start?
(Mr Mabey) The key problem with Europe on this issue
is that the Directorate of Trade in the Commission itself is taking
full responsibility for all negotiations even though it touches
on areas where there is not full European competence, like environment,
development, investment, competition policy. My impression from
officials with whom I have raised this is that they are saying
that the Treaty of Rome would have to be re-written to change
Commission competence, even in areas where it does not have full
competence. I have not checked the precise articles but I am sure
there is something better we could do about the member state input
and a level of closer control on those areas where they have responsibilities,
such as environment, and the officials of that member state at
the table or sitting behind the European Commission if they have
to retain the speaker's role. There is a lot of protocol out there
and a lot of things that have been expressed to me as tablets
of stone. "This is the way we do it. We cannot change the
way we do it." They do not seem to be hearing the message
that carrying on with business as usual could destroy the very
institution you seem to be wanting to defend, which is the World
Trade Organisation, and the rules-based trading system, because
that democratic deficit is one of the problems and in some ways
I think they think that is actually part of the solutions for
how they negotiate trade.
(Dr Jefferiss) I would add that it is not simply a
matter of only part of the Commission having competence and dominant
influence, but the fact that it is the Commission as opposed to
the Parliament and I think we are already seeing a trend towards
increased parliamentary influence and authority on a number of
issues and I think competence in negotiating of international
agreements and trade agreements in particular will become part
of the same trend.
Chairman: Thank you, all three of you,
very much indeed. It has been an extremely productive session
and we are very grateful to you.
|
