19th December 2005

Hopes of Gloucestershire campaigners have been dashed

Greens say that many of those in Gloucestershire who campaigned earlier this year to 'Make Poverty History' will be angered by news that the European Union and US have betrayed the world’s poor by failing to make serious progress towards the promised ‘development round’ at the World Trade Organisation’s ministerial summit in Hong Kong.

Philip Booth, a Gloucestershire Green party spokesperson, who in the past worked for the Australian Oxfam,  said: “The summit has prioritised opening markets, especially in services, to international competition and failed to put development at its heart. All the evidence is that developing countries were placed under enormous pressure by the EU and US to accept more and freer trade but without ending the export subsidies responsible for keeping millions of the world’s poor in abject poverty."

Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas, a member of the European Parliament’s official delegation to the talks, said said: “The deal emerging from the WTO talks falls well short of even the most pessimistic interpretations of what’s needed for a ‘development round’. The EU and US had promised to deliver a package of world trade rules which would benefit the developed world: but the best they seem to have managed is a non-binding commitment to end farm export subsidies in almost a decade’s time -  too late for millions of the world’s poor - and a so-called ‘development package’ based on little more than empty promises and previous commitments.

Philip Booth said: “Tony Blair has championed the cause of development in his public statements whilst failing to put it at the heart of the negotiations in reality. The price of this duplicity will be paid by some of the poorest families in the world - they have been denied a deal which delivers on development. The rich North should be ashamed of itself for prioritising forcing open developing nations’ service sectors against their will over keeping the promises they made previously to make progress towards a ‘development round’.”

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