Lisbon, 26-27/10/2007
To be checked against delivery
I would like, first, to thank the Portuguese Presidency for having initiated this conference, and also the Commission and our affiliates in Portugal, UGTP and CGTP-IN, for their help and support.
We hope that this meeting sets a precedent and that if, as we hope, the EU-Africa Summit in December decides to pursue an ambitious and well-structured Strategic Partnership, then such trade union meetings will become a regular part of it.
From the European side, after all our introspection about Institutional arrangements, I am glad that we can now turn our attention to an issue of world-significance such as achieving the Millennium Development Goals and in particular Sustainable Development in Africa. This is a massive agenda: decent work, eradicating poverty, gender equality, migration, climate change, peace and security. I could go on.
In dealing with these issues, we want Europe to demonstrate that it is open and generous, not an egoistical fortress. That view, maybe unfairly, is still held by too many people in African countries.
Perhaps it is because, despite the EU’s stated objective of seeking to enhance Policy Coherence for Development, Europe is perceived in Zwelinzima Vavi’s words I saw recently as “paying lip service to a development commitment”.
Coherence is a key factor: joined-up thinking. A central concern of ours is to ensure that trade, development, social and foreign policies go hand in hand and certainly do not contradict each other.
That is one of the reasons why we have been particularly attentive to the inclusion of sustainable development chapters in every EU trade agreement. And sustainable development of course includes social as well as environmental factors.
Together with the ITUC we have identified key social elements for such ‘sustainable development chapters’: full ratification and implementation of core ILO Conventions; a commitment not to lower labour standards in order to attract foreign investment; a mechanism to ensure involvement of social partners; and review processes and forms of redress to ensure observance.
The ETUC supports regional consolidation. And, as part of that, a strong social dimension. That is what we are striving to achieve in Europe.
The issue was identified by the seminal 2004 report of the independent World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, which was established by the International Labour Organisation and co-chaired by President Halonen of Finland and President Mkapa of Tanzania. This identified regional groupings as stepping-stones toward a fairer globalisation, depending on how strong a social dimension they had. So we hope that the African Union will develop along that line. We will do all we can to help.
A strong social dimension presupposes strong social partner involvement. Free and independent trade union involvement.
We welcome the intention expressed in the Commission and Council Secretariat joint paper to facilitate and promote a broad-based network of contacts, including between trade union organisations.
We welcome the emphasis on partnership at all levels that pervades the Strategic Partnership that is being developed.
But there is a need to be clear about the specific role that trade unions should, can, and want to play. The role of the EU-Africa Business Forum receives pride of place in the Strategy and references to ‘civil society’ abound among the actors envisaged to bring into effect the draft Action Plan we have seen. But the role of trade unions is referred-to only once among 21 priority actions.
So we want our voice to be heard – at least at a par with the employers. And we don’t want to be confused with NGOs.
We have made practical proposals on trade union involvement. For example in the Guide we developed with the ITUC and the trade union organisations in the ACP countries on trade union involvement in the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations.
The EPAs will undoubtedly be discussed in depth during the next two days. We have made clear to the Commission that the issues involved are much too important to be resolved in a rush so as to meet the WTO deadline of 31 December this year. Rather that a mechanical response to such a condition, the objective should be to achieve the smooth and successful integration of many of the world’s poorest countries in the world economy. We want to prevent precipitous liberalisation programmes that would undermine economic and social development.
That requires decisions to be taken through consensus and a full understanding of their implications.
This approach must be part of the ‘community of values’ that should underscore our partnership.
We agree the principles outlined in the strategy: our ‘ownership and joint responsibility, and respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law, as well as the right to development’.
Free trade unions are part of democracy’s DNA.
We have our problems in Europe, but they just do not compare with the existential battles we see engaged in many countries in the African continent.
I would like here to pay tribute to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions in particular. I would like to pay tribute to the courage of its leaders and rank and file members fighting for rights and decency in the face of a corrupt and dangerous regime.
So we cannot understand how someone like Robert Mugabe can be offered recognition by being invited to the table. That is not the way to bring about the community of values! Rewarding such an enemy of good governance will also be destabilising in the longer term, to everybody’s detriment. Europe should take the opposite track to China. A case like Zimbabwe is a test case for our values.
The Strategy also talks about Corporate Social Responsibility. This is not the occasion for a discussion in depth of the ins and outs of this tortuous subject. But I want to say one thing: EU-based multinational companies should act abroad in the same way as we expect them to act at home in Europe. We need to ensure that companies are responsible and responsive to democratic governance.
So there is a need for the political institutions, EU and AU, to get a grip on their activities. The OECD guidelines and the ILO declaration must be applied scrupulously. There is also a need for trade unions to keep them in check. We have now a solid base of international framework agreements negotiated with the Global Union Federations, mainly with European companies, that show the way. We have also Europe-specific tools such as European works councils that can help. We need to use them to the full.
President,
We support the EU’s intention to move beyond the options of the status quo in its relations with Africa or of piecemeal advances and to go towards a dynamic Joint Strategic Partnership.
We want to play our part. Promoting rights, decent work, social protection.