Claudia Gamon: “The realization that we have to expand our trade relations must also be followed by action.”
Vienna/Brussels (OTS) – “The ÖVP preaches water and drinks wine. Economics Minister Kocher, on the occasion of the presentation of the report on the situation of Austria’s foreign trade today, calls for the removal of existing trade restrictions and calls for an active trade policy on the part of the European Union. At the same time, the ÖVP in Brussels is blocking the expansion of partnerships with democratic states. The cat bites its own tail,” says NEOS MEP Claudia Gamon.
According to Gamon, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has shown how disastrous it can be to focus too much on individual trading partners. “Therefore, now more than ever, constructive international cooperation is needed and not a blanket no to new free trade agreements like Mercosur. Such agreements not only help the domestic, very export-oriented companies, but can also contribute to the diversification of the energy supply and the expansion of renewables, thus making us more independent.”
Gamon therefore demands that the ÖVP, realizing that we need to expand our trade relations, now act quickly: “The environmental chapter of Mercosur must be seriously negotiated. Mandatory sanctions are needed for violations of environmental standards, because trade must not be at the expense of our climate goals. But the blockade and scaremongering of the ÖVP and the other parties does not get us a millimeter further. Because as long as an EU member state threatens to veto it from the outset, there will be no serious negotiations. Austria is not only risking that a large future market will be lost to the USA and China, but with the stubborn no it is also preventing us from exporting the much higher European environmental standards to South America.”
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