I thank the Chairman for the acknowledgement on the submission issue. It may not be quite as much of a mismatch as it seems because the paper I circulated is on military and security policy but it discusses extensively the implications of this for developing countries. For example, we discuss the range of tasks which EU forces may engage in overseas and the reasons that can be adduced for these interventions.
We raise questions in the submission on whether it opens up the door to greater Irish participation in missions which could be to do with the interests of western powers rather than genuine humanitarian or developmental needs of people in poorer countries. There is a close link between those military policies and development issues and concerns for people in the majority world. I hope the submission will be of relevance to this module as well as to the module that will be discussed next week.
We are living in interesting times compared to where we were when the vote on the Lisbon treaty took place. One aspect is the general questioning of the economic paradigm through which we lived in recent years in terms of the deregulatory liberalised model or the neoliberal model of economic governance, as it is referred to by those involved in development studies. That has been cast in grave doubt and question by what has happened to financial and other markets in recent months and raises interesting questions about the future of the European Union and Ireland's future therein.
On the issue of development, the other contributors will agree there is very little to take issue with when it comes to the European Union's language vis-à-vis developing countries. For example, Article 10a of the Lisbon treaty refers to principles of democracy, the rule of law, universality, indivisibility of human rights and so on. When the treaty gets down to the Union’s external actions vis-à-vis development, it refers to sustainable economic, social and environmental development and the eradication of poverty as an objective in its dealings with developing countries. None of us has a difficulty or a disagreement with the language used.
The question is whether it does what it says on the tin. Does the practice match what it preaches? Campaigning organisations such as AfrI have grave doubts about this. We refer to the practice, for example, under the general agreement on trade and services where the European Union acting as a single actor tables sectoral requests to individual countries asking them to open up their service sectors or sections within them to competition from European firms and vice versa. We look to the well documented record that these requests are very much influenced by the European Services Forum, a corporate lobby group which, in large part, dictates EU trade policy in this area. Work done by, for example, the World Development Movement concludes that the European Union in the GATT negotiations targets some of the poorest countries in the world in its pursuit of services market access and countries where non-market based delivery systems are in operation because these operations deny commercial profit opportunities to European exporters. That is one example of an area where the Union’s practice does not match its rhetoric.
A second area where many campaigning groups, including AfrI, Trócaire and Comhlámh, are active is the European Union's negotiation of economic partnership agreements with developing countries. This is an ongoing issue. The European Union is trying to negotiate with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, moving towards reciprocal free trade arrangements. A number of our concerns about such agreements relate, for example, to the way in which poorer countries will lose tariff revenue, a vitally important source of government revenue for them, as they reduce their trade barriers. We also have grave concerns about the way in which the European Union is trying to oblige these countries to open up and liberalise their public procurement processes to European companies and fully expose their service sectors to competition from European exporters, among others.
The Commission, in particular, and the European Union, in general, are pursuing a broadly neoliberal agenda which, in many respects, is prejudicial to the development prospects of poor countries. Other contributors will discuss aid. Significant aspects of EU trade policy undermine or are incoherent with the aid objectives and principles the Union claims to uphold. Given that was how existing powers in the areas of trade and development were being used, with many other groups, we have grave concerns about extending these powers in the Lisbon treaty. Without wishing to rehash the debate, it is clearly to the fore of everybody's mind, based on the discussion during the final ten minutes of the previous session of the sub-committee.
We were concerned about the provision in the treaty that the European Union's common commercial policy would be explicitly extended to cover trade in services, the commercial aspects of intellectual property rights and foreign direct investment and to conclude agreements, and that qualified majority voting would be applied at Council of Ministers level with restricted exceptions. I will explain what seemed to be driving that, as it appeared to us. It seemed that the use of qualified majority voting would be the norm for trade in services. It seemed that the use of the national veto would be the exception, even in areas like health and education. In other words, it seemed that liberalisation was being introduced into new areas of the European services market, in part to ensure that the EU could offer bargaining chips to non-EU countries, as a quid pro quo, thereby strengthening its ability to negotiate the global liberalisation of trade. This brings me back to my opening point, which was that the endorsement of a unidirectional liberalisation agenda was not wise in the context of the original debate on the Lisbon treaty. The wisdom of that approach has been cast into even graver doubt over recent times.
Similarly, Article 56 of the Lisbon treaty stated:
Within the framework of the provisions set out in this chapter, all restrictions on the movement of capital between Member States and between Member States and third countries shall be prohibited.
In other words, the central thrust of EU policy on the global south was to ensure completely unfettered capital mobility. The Union was legally prohibiting the regulation of capital movements, regardless of the implications of such movements for poorer countries, or even for people in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. The free movement of capital could not have been challenged, regardless of its implications for development. That was worrying then and is more worrying now that we know where unfettered, unrestricted and unregulated free movement of capital has led us. I refer to the current financial crisis.
The Lisbon treaty also contained other commitments to liberalisation. It made reference to the progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade and the lowering of customs and other barriers. In essence, it represented an attempt to constitutionally ensure that the EU's negotiating stance in international trade negotiations had to involve the pursuit of the liberalisation of capital and trade in goods and services. Action from Ireland was not alone in expressing concerns about this. Many non-governmental organisations, including Action Aid, Christian Aid, Oxfam and Trócaire, expressed serious concerns at the time. I do not suggest that they were calling for a "No" vote, but they were highlighting their particular concerns. A document that was signed by 79 non-governmental organisations involved in development, including the four I have just mentioned, pointed out that the treaty appeared to prioritise trade liberalisation over a pro-development trade policy as the guiding principle of the EU.
The EU's attempt to strengthen its commitment to trade liberalisation and the other components of a neoliberal external agenda has to be questioned at this point in time. I argue that it is not the best way of promoting development in poorer countries, or indeed in Ireland. The time is right for a paradigm shift that involves much greater regulation of capital, for example. We need a much more strategic trade policy that allows poorer countries to avail of infant industry protection and other protections in order to build up their industrial and service sectors. Such a policy should involve much greater flexibility and a much greater willingness to question the neoliberal orthodoxy that has prevailed for the last 25 years, at least. That orthodoxy has increasingly guided the EU's external actions. I argue that it is not suitable, or useful, to the development prospects of poorer countries. Perhaps the post-Lisbon treaty period of reflection, in which we consider Ireland's future in Europe in the context of the financial crisis we are enduring, represents a good opportunity for us to rethink that agenda and put the focus on development, rather than liberalisation, once more.