EURO-MPS URGE EU TO REVOKE BURMA TRADE PRIVILEGES.

By Gillian Handyside

March 14 1997 (Reuter)

The European Union should withdraw special trading privileges from Burma's industrial and agricultural products, the European Parliament said on Friday. Euro-MPs voted in favour of European Commission proposals to strip Burmese industrial and farm exports of their preferential access to EU markets under the EU's Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) -- COM(96)711 and COM(97)58.

The move comes amid growing western unease over Rangoon's human rights record and the use of forced and child labour. A delegation of Euro-MPs on Thursday launched a campaign against tourism in Burma, protesting that forced labour was used to build hotels, roads and other infrastructure. "The very roads used by your customers will have been built by this cruel, forced labour," the Euro-MPs said in a letter to the Club Med in Strasbourg, urging the company to pull out of Burma. The Commission launched an investigation in Burma after complaints from international and European trade unions and non governmental organisations (NG0s) that Burma was using forced and child labour to boost its exports. The Commission said Burma refused to cooperate with the investigation into its labour practices. The European Parliament urged the Commission to keep Burma under continuous review and fully consult the parliament and EU governments before trying to renew GSP trade benefits. Burma should be excluded from the GSP until a

full inquiry proved Rangoon was no longer using forced labour, Euro-MPs said. Total EU-Burma trade totals around 41 million European currency units a year with around a quarter subject to GSP benefits, which include lucrative tax and tariff breaks.

EU foreign ministers are expected to examine the Commission's proposal to revoke Burma's GSP later this month. But Euro-MPs, trade unions and NG0s are increasingly worried that France may block the move, despite being one of the main supporters of good labour standards at last year's ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Singapore. France's largest multinational, Total, is involved in a 1.2 billion dollar jqint venture to build a gas pipeline in Burma. Trade unions fear Britain and Germany may also be wary of setting a precedent that could be used against other countries as a pretext to keep cheap foreign goods out of EU markets. The European trade commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, has said the EU is not obliged to offer preferential access to Burma and would not be in breach of any international trade agreement by revoking the GSP.

(c) Reuters Limited 1997