Resolution: Agriculture and Global Development

RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE ELDR CONGRESS
AMSTERDAM 2003

 

whereas we as Europeans are subject to the EU´s current Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), whose market regulations deny a full freedom of choice for consumers and a free and fair competition for producers,

 

whereas we as Europeans have a common interest and responsibility to protect our cultural inheritance and preserve the biodiversity, as well as to fight poverty, deprivation and despair.

 

whereas the CAP is detrimental not only to the diversity and the environment but also to the development of third world countries.

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reiterates its opinion from its Party Congress in Ljubljana in September 2001, that third world development is a moral imperative as well as a self-interest for Europe;

 

takes again into consideration, that policies in Europe on in particular trade and agriculture have a significant negative impact on developing countries and urges the European Union to ensure consistency in its external actions;

 

welcomes the important step taken by the European Union through the so called ”Everything but arms” initiative, which will open the door to the European market for the world´s 48 poorest countries, but urges that the EU should implement the new trade policy in 2004 and not in 2009 as earlier decided, and stresses that further steps now need to be taken;

 

calls for a European agricultural sector which not only produces food at prices which the consumers are prepared to pay, but also plays an important role in the future work of preserving the biodiversity and minimizing the negative effects on the environment;

 

calls for a quick deregulation of the European and American agricultural sectors, with abolished tariffs and quotas, with unlimited market access for exporters from poor countries and with heavily reduced subsidies, in order to establish international free trade only limited by food safety, public health and environmental standards