Udo BULLMANN

Policy topics Udo BULLMANN is active on

What Udo BULLMANN has said (20)

• 2026-07-13 “(15:41:50 - 15:44:40): Thank you very much, chair, and thank you very much, professor, for this interesting material that you have presented. Let me a bit dialogue with the 1st question that was presented by our colleague, Juergen, Waborn. Me, I'm an individual consumer, and I would like to buy a T shirt. And this T shirt has to be nice. I have to like the style. It should be good quality. And, of course, like, I wouldn't like to pay too much. Of course. But on the other hand, I would like, to be totally safe, that there is no forced labor, there is no forced children labor, and that those who have produced the T shirt have decent salaries, and they can, have a decent living. But how can I know? I mean, I get lost in this variety of self made labels which tell me everything and nothing, I do not know. So is this labeling policy that we are, realizing at the very moment, is that sufficient? If it's not sufficient, what do we have to do? Do we need additional due diligence instruments? Normally, we think yes. Otherwise, we cannot be safe. And I'm I'm pretty sure that Jung is similarly doing his choices. So it's not only me who would like to get to know. He he wants to know it as well. So we we we could join each other, being curious enough to be safe. How can we manage that as as European consumers? What does it need in technical terms, in legal terms to put us, the 2 consumers, on the safe side? That was my, number 1 question. Number 2 question, our experts. I listen to people. Sometimes people tell me, from, the trade and development point of view, don't export anymore, anything. And then I I I'm going to meet, for instance, entrepreneurs from Ghana, from Africa, or from other countries that tell me, oh, don't listen to them, because this is our business. And it's wonderful to have the material, but the material needs to be useful. And do not send us your crap. Please send us the things that we can afterwards remake into ordinary use. It's a big part of our consumption. It's a big part of our business reality. Don't stop exporting, but safeguard the quality of your exports. This is what you argue yourself. Very concrete steps. 1, 2, 3, what do you recommend? Thank you.”
  Due diligence in supply chains (environmental and human rights)
• “Thanks, chair. And thanks very much to our guests for their contributions. Colleagues, we are a couple of weeks in front before of the hearings. Wait a minute. What we heard now from the leading voices of civil society organisations is an alarm. Because if they say, and I quote Tanya Cox, the values of our foreign policy, of our development policy. And it's more than values. It's it's the treaty obligations. They are tumbling down. Then we have a problem because obviously we are on the wrong track and following wrong narratives. And since they mention, of course, it was the leaked document, and then it was the speech of the Commission's president elect, and then it was the strategic guidelines, and now it's the mission letter. There are some doubts that this impression accused by accident. So what can we do with that? What can we do with that? My personal impression is people still believe in some trickle down visions, which never have materialized. Barry, you have been leading our mission to the United Nations during the summit of the future, and we heard similar voices. We heard similar voices from international experts, from UN agencies and from our partner countries. Couldn't we go for something different by proposing, as we heard from the UNDP Director General Director Catchword investment? Because in investment you need all partners. You need a common vision, a common goal. That is the SDGs. Of course, you need private and state interventions and capital, but you need also a co-production which focuses on human development, on health, on education, on fights against poverty. So the summit has just brought back the orientation for the SDGs and made it a focus point of the international community. Couldn't we come up with a correction? A massive correction of the narrative in our dialogue with the respective commission candidates. That would be my plea of the day.”
  Global priorities for international development
• “They will say, okay, fine, but we have already competitors from pit to ship who are doing that much more efficiently, with much more money and are already on the market for quite a while. So what is your competitive offer? Where is your competitive advantage? What I would like to say is if we are following all our self-interest, which is not my take, as you know, but if we follow only our self-interest, we have to show up with a quality offer. And what could the quality offer look like where we bring into the game our competitive advantages? This is indeed the bridge to the mutual benefit of which we are talking. What? How can we describe the mutual benefit and mutual benefit indeed is describe added value creation skills, decent jobs and more industrial home grown activities in our partner countries. And if we come up with that, then we are on the right track. Number one. Number two, there needs to be more scrutiny by the European Parliament across all parties. Let us unite on this number two. ***Global Gateway -– past impacts and future orientation”
  Global priorities for international development
• “And this is my only point where I would like to criticize today the input. Let us not talk about the level playing field. Let us not use this words. A level playing field is terminology which is appropriate if we are talking about sound economic competition. But we should not go for a level playing field to kill. This is not an appropriate language and I would suggest that we are looking. With all due respect to all stakeholders in that game. It's not a game, but in that field policy field. Let us creatively look for solutions, strategic solutions. Yes. If the Commission is ready to go globally, we welcome that. Let's do it. Rotterdam convention, let's do it. Let's try it. And if we are successful, wonderful. But this is not enough. We cannot afford a situation where Europe goes for double standards, protecting our workers, protecting our consumers, and allows for dangerous stuff to endanger the livelihoods, the lives, the health and the environment in our partner Other countries. And here we are looking for legislative initiative. Legislative initiative has to be put on the table. And if it was on us, if it was on me, we would call for that. And we called for it already several times. So it's on the commission to react to that, and we are waiting for that and we are demanding that, full stop. We are in the collaboration with South Africa, I would say in a privileged situation. We are talking about South Africa today, but we are in a privileged situation because especially last year, we very much intensified the collaboration and I welcome that between our top representatives, we had five important meetings between Costa Rosa a von der Leyen.”
  Due diligence in supply chains (environmental and human rights)
• “Thank you. Chair. You rightly mentioned the double function in which I'm here. I hope you are a bit more flexible with the speaking time then, so that I'm back immediately. Advantage. Thanks, Miss Martin, for being with us today. I traveled the country by last week. Only had the chance to attend business to business, uh, conference European small medium enterprises. Uh chambers from Africa. Uh, also to talk to government institutions. Deputy Minister for Europe on trade and industry and many, many others. Uh, stakeholders from civil society think tanks. I only can congratulate the Commission for taking this initiative to closer, uh, work with South Africa in the idea of a government, whole of government and government, to government discourse, to developing our initiatives. South Africa has everything from their side that we could have success in this collaboration. The expectation of society is high. Expectation of government is high. The readiness of our institutions is given. We have an excellent delegation, EU delegation. We have a family working very well together of you, ambassador. So everything is there. Um, but that is not automatically producing success. What are the preconditions for success? The expectation of South Africa is that we do something against the high youth unemployment, that we develop ways to unleash the potential of the country, Free, that the added value that is going to produce an oracle liberation is going to stay in the country.”
  EU relations with the Southern Neighbourhood
• “Thank you very much, chair. I'm going to speak German to both the colleagues here in the room, but particularly to the ladies and gentlemen from the commission. I think we have a matter of principle to address here. We might have different assessments of the political situation. I have my own view. I'm not going to repeat what other colleagues have already said. Even a legalistic assessment might be different. But there is one thing which for me is absolutely central and quite basic, where we can't have different opinions. And that is whether a freshly signed agreement between the EU institutions applies or doesn't apply is being complied with or not. Or is it simply not worth the paper it's written on? I'm talking about the framework agreement. This isn't the first time that we've had a flagrant violation of the Parliament's rights in this parliamentary term, but I do think it will have to be the last time. Who is going to explain to us what has happened? I've understood that you can't, or at least it's above your remit. But then someone chairman has to come. Who can tell us?”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions
• “Thank you very much. President, Commissioner, president in office. Colleagues, if tomorrow, if you want to be prosperous and free, you have to invest in Internationally um, reliable partnerships. That is the message of the moment. We're talking about opportunities. That's correct. We must be present when others withdraw. Commissioner, in your reply, you tell us how much money is still in the kitty for next year, for good education and jobs, for international aid in crises, the humanitarian support. That is the reason why the foreign committees are saying correctly, there should be a big increase in international commitments, because otherwise we won't be on the radar internationally, I believe, and I'm talking to the commission and also to the council here. This time window shouldn't be missed. Thank you very much.”
  EU development aid (migration conditionality)
• “And once we talk to each other, then that is framed and that is responded by the argument. Well, what we are out for is win win games and the 360 degree approach. I very much like the win win. I very much like the 360 degree approach. But the very question is how can we achieve even our economic goals in partnerships on equal footing in win win games if we do not invest ourselves in human development chains of collaboration, because these are the preconditions of successful policy making on the ground in our partner countries. These are the three conditions for economic viable projects on the ground which have long lasting impact on the national or regional or local economies. Same to education, same to social infrastructure, traffic, transport, etc.. So for me, whatever you walk along, what kind of argument, whether you come from Oda or whether you come from new economic policy approaches, you end up in strengthening human development ties with our partner regions and communities. So where is the place in this new proposal to fix that?”
  Global priorities for international development
• “Chair. Jam. I listened carefully to both of you. Rapporteurs. Shadow rapporteurs. I have to say, I agree very much on the positions made by you, and I would like to add with a question to the Commission, if that is allowed, goes on the same line, then I was saying, why did this happen? Because it's going on for a long time. It is totally disrespectful. Of course, we can only come to the conclusion that Karen has drawn in her report. Of course, it's the background that Lydia has mentioned geopolitical lack of political will. But my question is, have we tried to get on track with the government in Cameroon? Is it a lack of governance. Sometimes we have a a lack of state capacity. Sometimes we're having to do with a lack of political will within governance. Can you can you come a bit more forward with details to create also a learning story on our side? Not that we will have similar experiences in different cases. That would be very unfortunate. Thank you very much.”
  EU-Cameroon relations
• “(15:18:32 – 15:19:22): Thanks, Bernd, and, complementing you as a chair to bring in the masterminds in a situation where exactly this debate is needed. Thank you very much, Pascal, for being with us. 3 quick questions. First of all, I'm chair of the South African delegation of the human parliament. We had 2 so called IPMs into parliamentary meetings last year to, accompany and to prepare what was happening at the end of the year. The result of all of this is that colleagues agree from both sides that we need a process, a regulatory dialogue, and a dialogue on the implementation of what, was agreed upon. That is the best way of scrutinizing because we look at the the issue from both sides.”
  EU foreign policy approach
• “(09:15:05 – 09:16:42): I taste. I'm very blunt. The text, which we have in front of us is not sufficiently reflecting what you rightly mentioned in your introductory remarks. We have too many planned spots. We have too many things we do not talk about, and we have, too much of old thinking in this text. And so far, I'm more than happy that we have a deadline until, I think, June 3 to repair that. Let me only quickly 0.1 couple of of, issues, which I I think are relevant. We are rightly saying we need to have capacity building, but we don't take account of the capacity destruction that is going on under global conditions at the very moment, my my number 1. My number 2, we are talking about, mitigating the risks in Africa. Are we really have a clear picture about the risk assessment procedures? We are talking about on a broad, ground also in our partner countries. This is of the essence also applying to SMEs, of course. And the very point is, are we ready not only to build up production schemes in our partner countries? Are we, at the very end, ready to discuss what kind of segments of the value chains are to be imported by us, or do we, afterwards, defend and protect productionistic, attitude? Now this will come back to.”
  EU policy on African region
• “Thank you, uh, Mr. Gilster, for the impressing, uh, messages that you brought to us. And of course, we are very much convinced of the excellency of your work and the work of your institution. Listening to you, I spontaneously thought, well, happy you. You are not in any crisis. You have open doors in Washington. You have open doors in Brussels. You have Mr. Gates on your side. You have impressive figures. I wish you luck. So I would hope that you can navigate that happily through the waves that are forthcoming. And I very much hope that receiving countries are still able tomorrow also to invest that 5 billion, which I'm not sure about. We have to fight in this committee. We have to fight to defend the corridor of vaccination, of humanitarian aid, of engagement in principle, in human development in the global South. And we have a hidden enemy. I'm happy to hear that. You don't have to face this hidden enemy, but the hidden enemy we have to face is a narrative. A narrative goes around in Washington, but also in Brussels, also in the services of Ursula von der Leyen. And this narrative goes well. Traditional Oda never did any good. There was no positive change by the policies of the past. I do not know whether you ever have heard about it, but once you have the opportunity to talk to that leading figures in Brussels as well as in Washington, please explain what kind of difference. I'd like to ask you a favor. Please explain what kind of difference? Your engagement and the engagement of other institutions in health, but not only in health, was able to produce during the last decades because we are facing a disaster. If Europe turns its back on the future of the continents in the global South, and this is at stake at the very moment in the MFF debate and in the overall settlement of our policies. Thank you very much.”
  EU Development & Humanitarian Aid
• “Don't misunderstand me that you are here today. But when you're coming to the European Parliament asking our wishes and our contributions to this. That would have the precondition of a constant dialogue. And when is the Commission ready to offer us An institutional agreement on this many deals. Or is it necessary to sue the Commission from the side of the European Parliament, as the Council did in 2016? We want to have the success together. But the success together of many deals of this new instrument, toolbox of trade instrument need to see the Parliament on equal footing with the Council. As the treaty requires it. There's more. There is more interest from the stakeholder side. Our SMEs ask, for instance, whether they are put into the right place in the global gateway construction. You know it very well. They only play a minor role. Trade unions are not existing. For instance, when do we start the trade union dialogue? Is this whole of government? They ask us, for instance, in the practical plans to make operational what we are doing. Can we exclude that we subcontracting to Chinese firms at the very end. And are they involved. So these are issues that can only be reflected in a better involvement of the European Parliament. And we are waiting for your offer.”
  EU political integration
• “That my party group fully shares the worries about people in need to flee the wars in the Middle East. And we would like to remember everybody that it never was that worse as it is now with Trump. But this is not the first time that Netanyahu and the US administration have caused people to flee. And I would like to encourage the commission to take a clear position on what is going on here, because that is clearly needed. Madam Commissioner, thanks for being with us. Um, two issues. Additionally, Tom Fletcher provided us with the numbers we know about them. He said it's completely complicated to collect the money. But he also said it's even more complicated to recreate the reimagination of humanity as a global good and as a global endeavor that unites us with our compassion, all the stakeholders. He is totally right, I guess, and I wish you luck that in your communication. You will be able to contribute to that. And the very last question that is about policy coherence and policy coordination. The European Commission tries to negotiate trade agreements with the Gulf states, with Gulf states that involve and invest themselves into wars and civil wars in Africa. I very much would wish. I do not want to bring you in a difficult position in the communication with our committee, but I would very much wish that the European Commission was able to develop a holistic, policy, coherent position in dealing with the Gulf states in this respect. Merci, Udo.”
  EU relations with Gulf countries
• “President Ramaphosa, very successful ones, strategic partnerships. We have found agreements on two new contracts, very important ones the Cptpp, the memorandum of Understanding on Minerals, two major achievements in last November. And we have, of course, also done our very best to intensify the parliamentary collaboration. This is an exception that South African parliamentarians and European Parliament's representatives had not only met once, they had met twice last year to prepare the ongoing meetings. And I found a whole lot of common ground with the representatives, with our colleagues of the South African Parliament. We had an excellent resolution. And this resolution that was passed last November here with Honourable Paolo from the South African Parliament and his colleagues in the delegation, was founded on the idea that what we are out for is the collaboration of our people in the best interest of our people, with the idea that drives our efforts and collaboration, the bilateral one, the well-being of all, and what could be better for the well-being of all, to protect the environment and the health of our citizens. So I promise that we will take that on in our next delegation conversations that is foreseen already for the summer. We will have two parliamentary delegations to South Africa, one of the Foreign Affairs Committee in May. Also in May, the trade committee that is going to South Africa, and we will do our very best to include that in the agenda.”
  EU policy on African region
• “You so much chair, and it is an honor to be here in a place there where I have been working in the last mandate at the end of the last mandate. And I'm extremely happy that my friend Munir took over and proceeds in that excellent way here in the subcommittee, which I would like to subscribe to, is of utmost importance for our parliamentary work in this House. So please help to strengthen the Subcommittee of Human Rights wherever you go. And today, this is an excellent proof, because what you are doing here is exactly what we have to discuss. Where we can identify the overlap between our domestic policies and our partnership policies are external affairs policies. With a partner country, especially here, South Africa. Let me welcome all our guests. It's a pleasure to, to having you here. Whether you are in the room or whether you are, online. In my capacity, in my new capacity as the chair of the delegation for South Africa. I'm happy that we were able to invite our colleagues to that meeting. Thanks for the invitation, and the results of our conversation will be brought to the work of our delegation. This is what I promise. And with that, I would like to give the floor back to you, chair.”
  EU competences on human rights
• “Thank you so much. I'm freshly coming from the coordinators. Forgive me for that, for not being here from the very beginning. Um, for me, this was a very exciting and inspiring mission. Let me add three elements to this discussion of the colleagues. First of all, my impression was that, uh, the collaboration between the Latin American countries of Mercosur and the European Union is so full of chances to shape the future together that we cannot miss that. That is my first takeaway. My second takeaway is. Yes, there are dangers. There are dangers. My colleagues have quoted that just deforestation is one of them. And it's a very slippery argument if we listen to analysis that tell us, well, it depends on the financialization of our own legislation, whether we see further deforestation. Yes or no. Very slippery. The very question is also what is the future of the indigenous people? Do we respect their rights? Do we respect their justified interests politically, economically, socially, culturally? Of course, there is a question which is the hope of the Mercosur states. Do we really achieve a positive added value production in the respective countries? Is that a win win game? I'm not to be very blunt.”
  Trade relations with Mercosur
• “Thanks, chair. 1 or 2 general remarks and one very important question to me. Important question. First of all, thanks to Tania coordinating role as well as to all the three reports. Very interesting. Listening to you. Very important. Thanks also to Miss Costa for the invitation to the European Parliament. As far as I know, the European Parliament Parliament will follow this invitation and is very grateful for that. And what I think about your reports is the following. If trade is not anymore only about taking economic advantages by whomever enterprises in the North governing classes, whoever takes whole societies. If trade is not automatically. How lucky can you get the mechanism to make everybody rich and better off? Nobody believes it anymore because that was the neoliberal ideology that failed already long ago. If trade is a contested policy area in an international battleground for Europe, it's the only way to survive because we are absolutely dependent on international exchange, not only economically, but also we need urgently regulatory dialogue. We need to survive with our standards, with the idea of our norm sets. And if we do not find partners who echo that and who integrate labor law, social standards, economic security, etc., etc., we are not able to survive.”
  Free trade agreements (FTAs)
• “Could I have ask to the next coordinators meeting? And that relates to his remark. But I do not discuss the content of the remark. I would like to ask you, chair and the Secretariat to put on the coordinators agenda of our next meeting. Not this one, but the next one, because we need to prepare. Uh, not today, but the next Coming Coordinators meeting to discuss the procedures of the negotiations of our reports on amendments.”
  EU political integration
• “Thank you chair. Welcome commissioner Lenarcic. Also, on behalf of the Socialists and Democrats here in this committee, I would like to echo the chair. I would like to start by saying thank you very much for what you did, and you are still doing you and your teams. We know that you have always been accessible for us. You were open minded and your communication, and you were extremely helpful to strengthen our activities in that respect. And we honour a lot that you always tried your very best to mobilise all the resources you had at your command, and to even become more flexible and more speedy in our reaction to indeed, the enormous growing humanitarian crisis all over the world. You mentioned the financial gap. You gave us already some ideas of how to continue our fight to be strong on the on the forthcoming budget struggles and to also request from our member States their involvement. Rightly so. But again and again from you, what is the learning story to go beyond? Because you also said the financial gap is growing. We do not know. We cannot at the very moment identify of how globally to fill the need. Yes, it would be wishful to have all in the boat, but we don't have and we are not in the position to force them in. It's not not easy. The multiple actors are there still resources in mobilizing the nexus elements that you mentioned? Regaining peace, keeping peace. Combining with development policies. Given the fact that many of our crises are long standing crisis, when we talk about the Sudan, when we are talking about others, other areas like Ethiopia and the world. We have long standing crisis and we are permanently financing after these crises without tackling the root causes. So do you have also requests on the foreign policy elements of the European Union to strengthen our input capacity? Also our roles? I mentioned Gaza because we are permanently reminded by all actors that we could play a stronger role with our foreign policy as Europeans member states as well the European Union. And is there still a space for mobilizing also the local resources in the countries in which we are operating to make ourselves more effective by localization? Thank you very much.”
  EU Development & Humanitarian Aid