Bunting to Brussels

by Veronica Pasteur, Head of Campaigns, Fairtrade Foundation

Very early one morning last week, I dragged myself out of bed to meet my colleague Ed Butcher, Public Policy Advisor and board the Eurostar to Brussels with a very precious cargo: a piece of the fairest and longest line of bunting in the world. Our mission – to take the bunting to Brussels and present it to MEPs at a special breakfast in the European Parliament, along with our demands for trade justice for cotton farmers in West Africa.

Just the day before we had had confirmation that our bunting was officially the Guinness World Record longest bunting line, so our hopes were high for showing MEPs the level of public support for Fairtrade and trade justice in the UK.

The breakfast was hosted by Linda McAvan, MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber and the Chair of the Fair Trade Working Group, a cross-party group of MEPs, working together for EU policies in support of fair trade. The participants enjoyed sampling a range of fair trade products while listening to farmers from Malawi and Tanzania explaining the obstacles marginalised producers and workers in the South face in trading their way out of poverty, and what Fairtrade has meant for them.

Over 50 MEPs, their assistants and other Parliamentary representatives attended the breakfast with the greatest showing from UK MEPs. They enthusiastically backed our campaign, but as the Common Agricultural Policy is negotiated there is little evidence that our demands to end unfair cotton subsidies have been heard by the European Commission.

All eyes are now on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Geneva in December, where we hope that the European Union can save face and press its trade partners, especially the US, to end unfair subsidies. This could be done as part of a deal from the dying embers of the 10 year WTO Doha (so-called) Development Round.

Watch this space for more in the run up to the 10-year anniversary and the Ministerial.