Following a vote today in Parliament's International Trade (INTA) committee on granting GSP+ trade preferences to a package of ten countries, including controversial candidate Pakistan, GUE/NGL MEPs have described the result as a missed opportunity to defend Parliament's competences on delegated acts.
 
GUE/NGL MEP Paul Murphy, shadow rapporteur for the Group on the issue, commented: “For the Parliament's plenary session in December we will most likely table the same resolution obliging the Commission to adopt a separate delegated act for each country that is a candidate to be a GSP+ beneficiary and to present them to Parliament as soon as possible.”
 
GUE/NGL MEP Helmut Scholz, Coordinator for the Group on the INTA committee, commented: “A conservative-liberal majority in the committee has given in to lobbying and blasted away the opportunity to defend a principle political and institutional right of the committee. We must be able to decide case by case whether a country deserves preferential treatment. To allow and accept the Commission's tactic to encapsulate Pakistan in a package of countries in order to avoid a separate decision is scandalous. This practice of putting together packages of countries with very different social, environmental and labour rights records prevents Parliament from applying its democratic right of surveillance of delegated acts. We support granting GSP+ to Ecuador, but not to Pakistan. We want to be able to reject giving preferences to a country neglecting workers and human rights, without creating collateral damage for Ecuador and other countries in the package.”
 
The MEPs now call on plenary to be more courageous in defending the competences of the European Parliament and its prerogative to oppose the granting of GSP+ to those countries that don't meet the criteria.

GUE/NGL Press Contact:
Emily Macintosh +32 470 85 05 08
European United Left / Nordic Green Left
European Parliamentary Group