Green MEPs prepare to grill Mandelson
29th Sep 2004
New EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson is to face one of the hardest political challenges of his career on Monday (October 4th) when he faces a grilling by Euro-MPs in Brussels.
Twice-sacked Mandelson will be quizzed on his ability to handle one of the toughest portfolios in the Commission and his plans for the post.
Caroline Lucas MEP, Green Spokesperson on International Trade, European Parliamentary delegate to the WTO Ministerial meetings in Seattle, Doha and Cancun - and one of the fiercest critics of Peter Mandelson's predecessor Pascal Lamy - said he will need to convince the Parliament of three main things: his loyalty, his ability and his philosophy.
"MEPs will want to hear that Peter Mandelson will not be acting as Tony Blair's place-man in Europe," said Dr Lucas.
"Blair is widely mistrusted in 'Old Europe', and a key question Mandelson will face is whether he will stand up for the Atlanticist economic model of flexibility, free trade and forcing open new markets - which informs US/UK trade policy - or its European counterpart: the Franco-German model with its stronger emphasis on social protection through regulation of trade.
"The US challenge on the EU's regulatory approach to GM foods currently before the WTO will serve as a key litmus test: will he effectively stand up to US pressure on the EU's right to set its own environmental regulations despite the UK position being closer to that of the US?"
A new approach
Dr Lucas, Green Party MEP for South-East England, continued: "A new approach to world trade has never been more urgent. The international trading system is close to collapse, with two of the last three WTO Ministerials dissolving in failure thanks largely to the EU's intransigence in pushing a corporate agenda of bringing investment and competition within the WTO's scope - against the stated wishes of the developing nations.
"We urgently need a different approach that puts the developing nations at the heart of the international trading system - if Mandelson is the man to deliver such radical reform he will need to show MEPs he has left the enthusiasm for forcing open new markets in poorer countries he demonstrated at the DTI at Waterloo Station before he boarded the train to Brussels."
Dr Lucas is a former advisor on trade policy issues and has written widely on international trade and corporate globalisation. Her recent book Alternatives to Globalisation - A Manifesto, co-authored by the late Mike Woodin - the academic and former Green Party Principal Speaker who died earlier this year, contains a detailed analysis of the EU's trading agenda under Pascal Lamy, and a prescription for replacing the WTO's cornerstone General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade with a General Agreement on Sustainable Trade.
She will herself quiz Mandelson on how he will improve transparency and accountability in the Commission's trade policies and negotiations.
Corporate access to - and influence over - the Commission is enormous, and growing, with CEOs allowed privileged access to documents keep confidential from elected MEPs.
"Will Mandelson be closing the door which his predecessors have opened ever more widely for corporate lobby groups? Will he be opening up the processes to democratically elected MEPs and the wider public, both in the EU and in the developing nations so often affected by EU trade policies?
"On his past record, there is little to suggest Mandelson is up to the job. The price of failure will be high though - not just in the developing world, where the human impact of EU trade policy is all-too-often felt, but for the European project itself, which is already straining under its own lack of transparency and democratic accountability."
MEPs, at least in theory, wield the ultimate sanction and could vote to sack the entire Barroso-appointed Commission after completing hearings with the new appointees at the end of next week.
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