Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-102)
RT HON
PETER MANDELSON,
MR ROGER
LIDDLE AND
MR CLAUDE
MAERTEN
7 FEBRUARY 2005
Q100 Mr Bercow: To what
extent can an agreement of the kind you have been describing this
afternoon significantly atone for the terrible damage that was
done to the living standards of farmers and others in those countries
by the grossly protectionist trade policies being pursued by the
United States, and are you going to try and do something about
them?
Mr Mandelson: I do not want to
attribute motives to the United States, nor do I necessarily accept
your characterisation of the US in this. It is more of a mixed
picture, to be fair to the United States. Your real question,
I think, goes back to the original exchange we had, and that is
just how ambitious and how sophisticated can we be without overloadingthe
system and being so smart that we never get it to the launch pad
so when we light the blue touch paper and attempt to send it up,
it is just too overloaded, it does not get off the pad. I think
my response to that is best expressed in this way: that without
seeking to export or thrust the EU model down anyone else's throat—heaven
forbid—we in Europe have benefited a great deal from regional
integration, we have benefited a great deal from building a very
competitive regional market—not competitive enough in my
view, which is why I am such a strong supporter of economic reform
and measures to promote competitiveness in Europe, which is why
I so strongly support the Commission's revamped Lisbon Agenda,
I am pro growth in Europe, I am pro competitiveness in Europe,
just as I am pro the poor in the world, and, incidentally, I do
not think you can be one without the other. A more competitive,
better performing Europe means we can be more generous and more
forthcoming in what we can do with and for the rest of the world.
I think it is an interesting model. I think that one of the hallmarks,
one of the chief features, of the partnership agreements which
I find most attractive—apart from their overall development
dimension and character—is this very essence of regional
integration, enabling ACP countries, groups of ACP countries,
to create and grow regional market arrangements that offer them
initially better protection as well as better market opportunities
and a better chance to realise the comparative advantage that
they would have if they were simply struggling in isolation and
apart from their regional neighbours. I think the European model
does have something to offer in that respect. I think that we
can use regional integration, growth of regional markets as a
way both of multiplying the effects and the impact of the aid
and development assistance we apply, but also multiplying the
attractiveness to foreign direct investors to come into those
markets. It is a very different proposition if you are saying
to an investor, "Come and invest in my country and we will
do this, that and the other for you" from saying, "Base
yourself in my country, you will have the opportunities and advantages
of knowing that based in this country you will be able to multiply
the effect of your investment around an entire region and not
just in the country alone." It is the same principle on which
we attract foreign direct investment into Europe's single market.
I think it is an attractive principle, it is a good principle,
it is why I am pro-European, and it is why I would like to see
the benefits and advantages of our model, albeit redefined, recalibrated,
retailored, to the needs and interests of some of the weakest
and most vulnerable countries in the world, and that is the ACP
countries.
Q101 Chairman: Commissioner,
thank you very much for coming and giving evidence this afternoon.
I think we will read and study all you have said because you have
said quite a number of new things this afternoon. You have been
described as a second-hand car salesman, and I was not quite sure
whether you were described as a dog or a bone, but I hope you
will explain to Commissioner Michel, who is coming to give evidence
to us, that in the House of Commons they are terms of endearment
and nothing else. I hope that the Committee might be able to tempt
you back in the autumn to come and talk to us about the WTO and
Hong Kong. As you know, we have taken a very considerable interest
in the WTO, we produced a report both before and after Cancún[5].
We are very grateful to you for coming today because I think we
all thought cotton and ACP and these negotiations had been rather
forgotten and we are grateful to discover they are not.
Mr Mandelson: Chairman, thank
you very much. I would be delighted to return in the autumn, when
we will be that bit nearer Hong Kong and that bit nearer either
a famous milestone or a disaster looking us in the face, but I
am optimistic. In the meantime if any of your members have not
heard sufficient from me or about my views, perhaps I could leave
you a copy of a lecture which can be duplicated and circulated
to the Committee which I delivered at the LSE last Friday entitled
Trade At The Service of Development[6].
Q102 Tony Worthington: We
have it!
Mr Mandelson: You have it already!
Chairman: Thank you very much.
5 See footnote 17. Back
6
Lecture made at the London School of Economics, 4 February 2005.
Copy placed in the Library. Back
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