26 Amendments of Stelios KOULOGLOU related to 2015/2105(INI)
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 11 a (new)
Citation 11 a (new)
– having regard to the mandate given in June 2014 to the UN Open Ended inter-Governmental Working Group (OEIGWG) to develop a legally binding international instrument on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises,
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas the EU’s trade and investment policy must be bolstered not only by ensuring beneficial outcomes in terms of employment and wealth creation for citizens and businesses, but also by guaranteeing a coherence with the EU policies to guarantee and strengthen citizens' social and environmental rights, cultural diversity and development co- operation, the highest level of transparency, engagement and accountability, by maintaining constant dialogue with social partners, stakeholders and local and regional authorities, and by setting clear guidelines in the negotiations;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. WelcomesTakes note of the Commission’s new strategy ‘Trade for all – Towards a more responsible trade and investment policy’; regrets the Commission’s delay in presenting a new strategy, given that Parliament requested that a revised mid- and long-term trade strategy be presented by summer 2012 but deeply deplores that, despite the growing criticism of the current EU international trade policy by the European citizens, Commission is not redirecting this policy it and proposing concrete steps in order to ensure that international trade is contributing to defend and guarantee, -and not to undermining in favour of corporate companies and investors-, the citizen's social and environmental rights, job creation and defence of quality jobs, public services including health services, family and middle scale farming, food security and sovereignty, cultural diversity and coherence with the development cooperation goals and SDGs;
Amendment 68 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Recalls that trade liberalisation is not positive per se, in terms of reducing poverty inequalities, and could even have negative effects on sustainable development if it is not properly regulated and accompanies by binding control mechanism for corporations and by re- distribution through fair and progressive tax systems;
Amendment 75 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Calls on the Commission to ensure that the new EU trade policy will not endanger the level of intra EU exchanges, that are more sustainable, ecologically and socially, instead of weakening it through liberalization and trade deals in benefit of corporate companies interests and investors such as TTIP, CETA, TiSA and EPAs;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to regularly update its trade and investmentinternational trade strategy and to publicly present a detailed annual implementation report to Parliament; assessing the impact of this strategy on citizens' rights and interests;
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Welcomes the Commission’s attempts to increase transparency and openness at all stages of trade negotiations, such as the Commission’s TTIP transparency initiative; acknowledges that, after a number of requests from Parliament, the Commission enhanced the transparency of negotiations by providing all Members of the European Parliament and of the national parliaments access to classified negotiating documents and providing more information to stakeholders; recalls that enlarged access to classified information by Members of Parliament in the TTIP negotiations has strengthened parliamentary scrutiny, thereby allowing ParliamentEncourages the Commission to guarantee to all Members of the European Parliament and of the national parliaments and to the public in general, full access to all negotiating documents; recalls that this access would allowing Parliaments and stakeholders to assume itstheir responsibility under the CCP even better; calls therefore for a widening of the Commission’s transparency initiative to extend its key elementsfull transparency and possibility for public scrutiny to all ongoing trade negotiations;
Amendment 95 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Stresses that theCalls on the Commission to ensure a strong and balanced involvement of civil society and stakeholders, including through appropriate public online consultations, is crucial in order to strengthen the legitimacy of trade policy and to improve its contentdeeply transform and improve the content of the EU's international trade policy and orient it to the defence of citizen's rights, and thereby strengthen its legitimacy;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Recalls that the CCP is toshould be conducted in the context of the principles and objectives of the Union’s external action as set out in Article 21 TEU; recalls that the EU’s trade and investment policy must be consistent with other external policies; stresses that the EU has a legal obligation to respect human rights, and should foster the sustainable economic, social and environmental development of trading countries; points out that in somemost cases trade and investment agreements may have negative effects contrary to the EU’s external objectives as enshrined in the Treaties; is of the opinion that the EU has a responsibility to help tackle anythe negative impact caused by its CCP;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. RecognisesTakes note of the Commission’s efforannouncements to strengthen sustainable development and promote human rights, labour and social standards and environmental sustainability worldwide through its trade and investment agreements and calls on to present soon concrete and ambitious proposals in this direction; shares the Commission’s view that the EU has a special social responsibility as regards the impact of its trade policies on developing countries and in particular on least-developed countries (LDCs);
Amendment 117 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Considers forced migration to be one of the main challenges the EU is facing in the 21st century, and is related to trade and investments policies; emphasises that the EU’s trade and investment policy choices are fundamental in order to tackleavoid it to be a push factor of migration; regrets that this has not been sufficiently reflected in the ‘Trade for All’ strategy;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Recalls that the ILO estimates that 865 million women around the world, if better supported, could contribute more robustly to economic growth; noteregrets that women-owned businesses represent an underutilised lever to boost competitiveness, accelerate business and sustain growth; statesthe Commission does not address the gender dimension of trade agreements in its ‘Trade for All’ communication, especially regarding the impact of thate trade policy can have differing gender impacts across the various sectors of the economy; regrets that the Commission does not address the gender dimension of trade agreements in its ‘Tradon women's and girls' rights such as the rights to health -and associated rights, including reproductive health- access to education, training, food, work, safe fwor All’ communication;king conditions and water, and calls on the Commission to step up its efforts to ensure that both women and men can take advantage of the benefits of trade liberalisation andto be protected from its negative effects;
Amendment 150 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Calls on the Commission to include in any new or already existing trade agreement the necessary rules to guarantee a successful fight against money laundering, tax evasion and tax elusion, -instead of facilitating them through finance service liberalization;
Amendment 156 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 c (new)
Paragraph 13 c (new)
13c. Recognizes that universal access to quality public services and common goods such as water and sanitation, education, healthcare and access to medicines is a key component of Member States capacity to guarantee Human and social Rights; therefore calls on the Commission and Member States to refrain from including negative lists in trade deals, nor standstill and ratchet clauses, that threaten states' capacity to reverse achieved liberalisation floors;
Amendment 173 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 b (new)
Paragraph 15 b (new)
15b. Demands that Aid for Trade and technical assistance to focus on the empowerment of poor producers, micro and small enterprises, women equality and women empowerment and cooperatives in order to boost their benefits from trading in local and regional markets;
Amendment 178 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Calls on the Council to meet their commitments to the Doha Declaration by ensuring that the Commission's mandate explicitly excludes pharmaceutical related TRIPS plus provisions which negatively affect access to medicines such as data exclusivity, patent extensions and limitation of grounds for compulsory licences within the framework of futures bilateral and regional trade agreements with developing countries and when developing countries engage in accession to the WTO;
Amendment 182 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 c (new)
Paragraph 16 c (new)
16c. Calls on the Commission to provide full transparency of the content of its IP related assistance programmes for LMICs, and ensure that parallel assistance on intellectual property does not undermine other health-related development projects supported by the Commission's Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development;
Amendment 183 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 d (new)
Paragraph 16 d (new)
16d. Calls on the Commission to generate data of better quality on the economic and social impacts of Intellectual property protection and enforcement, including on the adverse impact on generic competition and public health; calls on the Commission to ensure that ISDS or ICS existing and eventual future clauses clearly exclude pharmaceutical intellectual property from the scope of dispute settlement;
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Calls on the Commission not to request provisional application of trade agreements, including trade chapters of association agreements, before Parliament gives itsthe European Parliament and the national parliaments give their consent; recalls that it could seriously undermine Pparliament’s' rights and create potential legal uncertainty vis-à- vis the agreement’s other signatory and the economic operators concerned;
Amendment 218 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Considersriticizes the increase of plurilateral negotiations at the margin of the WTO or within the WTO such as ACTA, TiSA, the Information Technology Agreement and the Environmental Goods Agreements to be the second-best option; emphasises that trade policy should also be used as a tool for increasing the competiveness ofaccessibility of socially and environmentally beneficial products; stresses the importance of multilateralising the ‘green goods’ initiative and of considering whether bilateral or unilateral trade agreements could provide premium preferences for environmental goodplurilateral negotiations at a stage and with a method that gives a chance to all countries to provide inputs on the content of the agreements;
Amendment 247 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Underlines, in the context of the current talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the EU- Japan FTA, the high importance of focusing on core sensitive issues such as thedecent and quality jobs, on small and middle sized agriculture, on safeguarding public services, on maintaining the right to regulate, on protection ofng geographical indications (GIs) and public procurement, respect of democratic bodies, health and educational services, data protection and public procurement for SMEs, and with adequate social and environmental conditions, when negotiating FTAs;
Amendment 328 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36
Paragraph 36
36. WBelcomieves the Commission’s intentiat more could be done to use trade policy to tackle new forms of digital protectionism and to set rules for e-commerce and cross-border data flows in compliance with EU data protection and privacy law; believes that much more needs to be done to create a climate favourable to e-commerce and entrepreneurship within the EU; stresses that ensuring regulatory cooperation, mutual recognition and harmoncreate a more favourable and secured digital climate for consumers and entrepreneurship within the EU; notes that it should start by delivering tangible benefits for consumers such as reducing monopolies and abuses of monopolistic positions in the telecom market, reduced geo-blocking practices and concrete redress solutions; calls for more co- operation between enforcers, especially on unfair commercial practices carried on- line; urges to systematically incorporate comprehensive horizontal provisions that fully exempts exisation of standardng and future UE rules ion the digital trade sector is vitalprotection of personal data from all agreements;
Amendment 371 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43 a (new)
Paragraph 43 a (new)
43a. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to actively support the UN Open Ended Inter-Governmental Working Group (OEIGWG) developing a legally binding international instrument on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises launched in June 2014;
Amendment 385 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 46
Paragraph 46
46. Emphasises that access to resources on equal terms is of vital importance for fair competition on the global markenatural resources are limited and should be used in an economically and environmentally sustainable way, giving priority to recycling, and helping developing countries and especially LDCs to use part of their raw materials for their own industrialization and development; recalls that common goods such as air, water, and energy are limited and producers should compensate their cost for consuming these resources by paying to public funds for sustainable development; recalls that European trade policy needs to pursue a consistent, sustainable, comprehensive and cross- policy strategy concerning raw materials as already outlined by Parliament in its resolution on a new trade policy for Europe under the Europe 2020 strategy;
Amendment 403 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 50
Paragraph 50
50. Shares the OECD’s view that open and fair trade and investment policies need a range of effective flanking policies in order to maximise the gains and minimise the lossescompensate the impact of trade liberalization on the populations, in Europe and abroad, and on the economy ; urges the Members States and the Commission to do much more to complement trade opening by a range of supporting measures in order to ensure inclusive growth – such as educationsustainable development, – such as reinforcement of public service for education and health, active labour market policies, supporting research and development, and infrastructure for development, and social protectiondequate rules to guarantee social and environmental rights;
Amendment 414 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 52
Paragraph 52
52. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the European Economic and Social Committee and, the Committee of the Regions, to UNCTAD and to the WTO.