PRESS CONFERENCE BY EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Dr. Franz Fischler, Member of the European Commission responsible for Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, this afternoon reiterated the European Union’s commitment to help developing countries derive benefits from trade.

Speaking at a Headquarters press conference, he said the European Union was committed to ensuring duty-free and quota-free market access for essentially all products exported by least developed countries. He hoped other developed countries would follow that example and make similar commitments.

He said further stimulus to trade could best be given by tariff preferences that gave a real advantage to developing countries, compared to developed countries competing on the same market. The developing countries, particularly the net importing States among them that depended on agricultural imports, must be aware that free trade was no solution to their plight without accompanying measures. The weakest producers gained far less from free trade than the most competitive ones, unless they were assisted in improving their competitiveness through appropriate soft aid and technical assistance, he said.

Although he supported a move towards a more open trading system, he also underlined the need for following the social and environmental effects of trade liberalization and for appropriate action to be taken.

Dr. Fischler had earlier addressed the eighth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, currently under way at Headquarters.

At his press conference, he underscored the commitment of the European Union to the objectives of Agenda 21. He said agriculture needed enabling conditions to fulfil its multiple roles, which included the production of food and fibre, and ensuring food security and the social and economic viability of rural areas.

The European Union attached the utmost importance to the World Food Summit’s objective of halving the number of undernourished people and people living in poverty by 2015. That ambitious objective would be achieved only if favourable terms were set for improving agricultural productivity. It was also a precondition, he said, to promote responsible stewardship of the natural resources on which agriculture was based. He also said that sustainable agriculture required the implementation of best practices, including the sustainable use of pesticides, fertilizers and water.

Dr. Fischler stressed the need for functioning institutions to stimulate private initiative, the mobilization of domestic resources and increased foreign investment. Society participation, better information and education, as well as equal access to land and legal security of tenure must be guaranteed, he said, and urged the Commission on Sustainable Development to incorporate those elements into its action-oriented decisions.

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