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I WRITE to clarify some points made in last Tuesday's article, 'Feel-good 'green' policies misguided', regarding the European local-food campaign.
The labelling mentioned in the article is a marketing initiative by private firms. It is not the result of a European Union (EU) policy. EU trade and environmental policy is definitely not to 'deny poor farmers in developing countries the benefit of globalisation''.
On the contrary, the EU has been actively assisting developing countries to reap the benefits of globalisation.
These are the facts:
67 per cent of the EU's agricultural imports come from developing countries; that is more than the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan combined.
The EU gives 800 million euros (S$1.7 billion) a year in trade assistance to the developing world.
It invests 2 billion euros a year to promote the developing countries' participation in world trade by 2010.
Since 2001, exports from the world's 50 poorest nations have enjoyed free access to the EU market.
97 per cent of all goods from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries enjoy tariff-free access to the EU.
40 per cent of EU imports originate in developing countries, amounting to about 362 billion euros' worth of trade.
The EU provides 48 billion euros in development aid a year - that is 57 per cent of the world's total development aid.
EU governments, through legislation, and EU citizens, through their daily acts, are leading the fight against climate change. We are reducing our carbon footprint for the future of our entire planet - not for the benefit of Europeans alone.
Holger Standertskjold
Ambassador
Delegation of the European Commission to Singapore
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