Ford (PSE). - Mr President, I welcome the Council's proposals to withdraw access to GSP for both industrial and agricultural goods from Burma. Hopefully this action will put further pressure on the military dictatorship of the SLORC in that sad country to stop its massive use of forced slave and child labour to construct its infrastructure of hotels to try to boost its tourist trade.

Last December together with Mrs Kinnock I visited Aung San Suu Kyi clandestinely. We videoed an interview with her. Her message was absolutely crystal clear: End investment in Burma; impose sanctions. Clearly these would not be without impact onthe Burmese people? Yet the need for action was absolutely clear to her and who better to speak for the Burmese people. In 1990 her party, the National League for Democracy, received 80% of the votes.

When Mrs Kinnock and I returned from Burma we took the opportunity to meet both with Commissioner Marín and the Irish presidency. They were both sympathetic but were awaiting the response from the regime to a request from the Commission for an investigation team to visit Burma to investigate the allegations of forced labour. Within a few days of our meeting the Burmese junta peremptorily refused permission for the Commission to visit. We therefore congratulate the Commission and the Council for moving so swiftly. I would particularly like to congratulate Commissioner Marín for the very tough line he took in Singapore and the way he stood up to the criticisms from some Member States.

I also hope that the industrialists of Europe are listening to this and that TOTAL and Club Med will follow the line taken by Heineken, Carlsberg, PepsiCo, Levi, Apple and Thomas Cook.

Two final points. The European Parliament is rightly emphasizing its links with Asia. As one of the Bureau members of the Japan delegation, I had a meeting yesterday with other representatives of Asia delegations to talk about ASSET II, an inter-parliamentary meeting between Members of the European Parliament and the Asean parliaments. I hope it is crystal clear to everybody that will only include Asean parliaments with which we have a relationship.

Finally, I would like to ask Commissioner Marín if he could assure us that the Council is not now going to block this proposal because of the actions of a fag-end government in one Member State.