European Parliament
Queiró (PPE-DE ),
in writing
(PT)
I voted in favour of the Joint Motion for a Resolution on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee, ‘Developing countries, international trade and sustainable development: the function of the Community’s generalised system of preferences (GSP) for the ten-year period from 2006 to 2015’, because I feel that all necessary efforts to simplify and improve Community actions in developing countries must be properly supported and funded by Parliament. I feel it is crucial that we meet the global objective of simplifying the graduation mechanism, yet I am concerned that the Commission’s proposal disregards certain development and poverty indicators, which may lead to discrimination against big yet poor exporters. I regret that the Commission did not follow up Parliament’s recommendation that the current functioning and impact of the current GSP should be subject to a thorough assessment. I should like to conclude by saying that further clarification is required as regards the consequences of changes to the GSP, so that Parliament is in a position to carry out a better-informed and more definitive assessment.

