supporting Fair Trade
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Supporting Fair Trade can be done at multiple levels; of course, the first level is the individual one: we, as concerned people who want a better world and do our share buying accordingly. Besides that, if you happen to play some other role, apart from consumer, you can do some other things... In this page we will have a look at the official support that Fair Trade is or should be receiving.
legal support
A number of official institutions are explicitly supporting Fair Trade, be it just by issuing a document or with a real involvement which includes sourcing Fair Trade products for their own use.
Here in Europe, the European Parliament is supporting Fair Trade by passing some resolutions like this one. It states the importance of Fair Trade on sustainable development, poverty reduction and its role in reaching the Millenium Development Goals; it also sets a number of requirements, addressed to other institutions, to further enhance legal support. Along with this document, there are also some "buy green" guides for public procurement which honor Fair Trade.
Particularly in France, on May 15th 2007 the legal basis was created for a future National Commision on Fair Trade (Commission Nationale du Commerce Equitable); it will be composed of 22 members, 8 of which represent public institutions, 4 Fair Trade Organisations and 10 other stakeholders such as consumers, retailers and non-governmental organisations. This commission will have the task to accredit entities who watch the compliance with fair trading conditions.
May be you already know that in november 2007, a court in Groningen, the Netherlands, ruled in favour of Fairtrade certification label over the Utz Kapeh seal for public tenders for coffee procurement, recognizing the higher value and better impact of Fairtrade label and asking for it when it comes to public purchasing. There is a press release by FLO on that.
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| declaring a Fairtrade borough. Photo by R. Groovy |
On the other hand, the EU keeps signing bilateral trade agreements, known as EPAs, with South countries for which it exerts some degree of pressure, separating some countries from others.
This is in sharp contrast with art. 177 of the European Community treaty, which says that EU’s development policy will foster "the sustainable economic and social development of developing countries, and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them, - the smooth and gradual integration of the developing countries into the world economy, - the campaign against poverty in the developing countries".
Similarly, the Cotonou agreement, signed in 2000 in Cotonou (Benin) between the European Union and 77 countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, states in its art. 23 (g) that "Cooperation shall support sustainable policy and investments necessary for equitable access to economic activities and productive resources, particularly [...] trade development, including the promotion of fair trade.". It seems that there is still a long way to go.
One of the collective ways of supporting Fair Trade is becoming appointed as a Fairtrade town. As you may have deduced from their name, they are towns or cities (or boroughs into cities) which have expressed publicly their support for Fair Trade, both from the civil society and from the public institutions, who ultimately make the formal proclamation.
Finally, we must cheer the work done by the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, located in Brussels (Belgium), who has the mission of supporting Fair Trade as near as possible to the European Parliament, trying to influence in the laws they pass.
economic support
Well, as to the international trade standards, there is a large room for improvement, let alone the issue of agricultural subsidies...
Currently, import tariffs are much lower for non-processed supplies than for processed goods, so it may be non-profitable for producers to export, for example, roasted coffee instead of green coffee beans. This in turn generates another disadvantage: producer countries are not encouraged to invest on processing facilities, thus hampering their industrial development efforts.
However, as a form of support, the European Parliament has proposed to eliminate import duties for Fairly traded products as well as establishing a lower type of VAT for these items. I wish I can live long enough to see it...
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