Colombian agricultural sector: Victim of its own alliance

 

The Executive Bureau of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) gathered on Feb. 23-24 in Brussels, Belgium, and as a side activity organized an informal meeting of the country's Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee with legislators and Belgian labor federations, to which CUT was invited.

 

The idea was to exchange opinions on the hurried discussion of a Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and the Government of Colombia, as representatives of our government were also in the city of Brussels around those days.

 

Coincidentally, the same Bogotá–Brussels flight that carried our delegation to Europe included some business operators linked to the agriculture and cattle sector, with whom we had a chance to talk and who complained to us of what they said was the apathy and radical stance of Colombia's labor movement for refusing to support free trade agreements, a stance they claimed "only contributed to further isolate Colombia in international trade and hinder its investment possibilities."

 

When we spoke before Belgium's labor federations and legislators, we reaffirmed CUT's position with respect to free trade agreements. We made it clear that we are not against international trade, provided that it be conducted on the basis of overcoming the flagrant human and labor rights violations committed by the Colombian government and transnational corporations. We believe that international commerce should allow for autonomous development and the consolidation of Colombia's national sovereignty and internal democracy.

 

Moreover, while in the agreement the tariffs and safeguards that protect Colombian exports are wiped out with a stroke of the pen, the European Union slips in enormous aid for its production and maintains its agriculture subsidized with 50 billion euros. 

 

The sole great gain that the banana industry was supposed to obtain from the FTA, which would be the lowering of the import duty for bananas from 176 euros to 126 euros per metric ton, will now only be implemented gradually over a ten-year period of time.

 

Another fallacy on which the FTA is based is the supposed existence of Colombian exports to Europe, when in reality the country's leading export products are no longer Colombian: ferronickel exports are owned by BHP Billiton, leaving scant royalties for Colombia; and the oil exported is owned by European companies, such as BP Exploration, Perezco, Cebsa and Emerald Energy Ocol.

 

There's also the issue of Europe's phytosanitary measures, which impose extremely high standards on imports into the European continent. This means that no meat or dairy products will be allowed to enter Europe. That was in sum the situation presented to the Belgian unionists and legislators we met with.

 

We weren't prophesying anything. CUT's position is the result of thorough economic, political and social analyses. The recent statements of the association of agriculture and cattle producers in Bogotá have proven us right. Having strutted off to Europe, they now come back downcast, lamenting the consequences of the agreements reached, in which the "respectful" proposals from Fedecoleche and Colanta, among others, were completely ignored.

 

Now they admit that the protectionist subsidies enjoyed by European dairy producers make it impossible for Colombian producers to compete, and the national dairy industry is thus mortally wounded, as the huge disadvantage in prices in favor of European producers will result in European consumers choosing home brands over imported ones.

 

They also admit that to date not a single liter of milk nor a single kilo of meat have been exported, while trade agreements in these lines of product and in agriculture are already in place with Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile, which export to Colombia.

 

Colombia's business sector must now understand that the treatment they've received from the government, inviting them to give their respectable opinion was merely meant put on a show of inclusiveness, a lie that the labor movement refused to buy into.

 

In any case, the lamentations of the business associations, which question the labor movement and are now victims of their own sponsoring of the FTA with Europe, have caught the attention of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who has decided to act directly and review the situation of dairy producers. He makes no mention, however, of the other components of Colombia's agricultural sector.

 

Even though the general agreements between Colombia and the European Union have been signed, CUT and Colombia's workers will continue struggling at home and abroad to stop this disastrous trade process, along with the one with the United States and Canada.