Press conference by Bernd LANGE (S&amp;D, DE), Trade Committee Chair and Iuliu WINKLER (EPP, RO), Rapporteur, Cecilia MALMSTR&Ouml;M, Member of the EC incharge of Trade and Lilianne PLOUMEN, Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Bernd LANGE (S&amp;D, DE), Chair of INTA EP Committee on the Trilogue outcomes on Conflict Minerals, in the EP in Brussels,

Brussels

press conference

LANGE, Bernd (S&D, DE)

MALMSTRÖM, Cecilia (ALDE, SE, EC)

WINKLER, Iuliu (EPP, RO)

conflict minerals (T)

PLOUMEN, Lilianne (NL)

Conflict Minerals - Trilogue outcomes: extracts from the press conference by Bernd LANGE (S&D, DE), Iuliu WINKLER (EPP, RO), Cecilia MALMSTRÖM and Lilianne PLOUMEN

SOUNDBITE (English), Bernd LANGE (S&amp;D, DE), Chair of INTA EP Committee, I&rsquo;m deeply convinced that our agreement, our political understanding will change the situation of the people on the ground in conflict regions; so we have to be responsible for their wellbeing and this is a big big step. We reached a clear diligence for importers of minerals and metals and this is a big step for the value chain from the mine to the smelter and a big difference is that we are really covering concrete conflict regions and not making discrimination of specific regions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Iuliu WINKLER (EPP, RO), Rapporteur, We will have a conflict minerals regulation in the EU. We have been working bearing in mind always the interest of the people and the communities in the conflict regions. The idea and the focus of this regulation is that we want to ensure that they can have a better life and I think that our regulation also has a very important meaning in the context of the migration crisis which is faced by the EU because EU says that we have to help and assist communities on the ground and to destroy the incentives that people are having to migrate to become irregular economic migrants.

SOUNDBITE (English), Iuliu WINKLER (EPP, RO), Rapporteur, We want to have EU industry as a partner so in the regulation we will recognise in certain very clear conditions the industry due diligence schemes, and that&rsquo;s very important.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lilianne PLOUMEN, Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade, Obviously technical details have to be decided, but let me make a call to all producers, smelters... You don&rsquo;t have to wait for every detail to be fixed to do the right thing. Everybody is very much invited to already come to us and we very much encourage everyone who is in the value chain to look at how they can continue to work on this. Grandfathering of course will be part of the agreement but you don&rsquo;t have to use those clauses, you can start right away by doing the right things. <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/ebs/tweet.cfm?url=http%3A%2F%2Fec%2Eeuropa%2Eeu%2Favservices%2Febs%2Fschedule%2Ecfm%3Fpage%3D1%26date%3D06%2F16%2F2016&amp;text= Press%20conference%20by%20Bernd%20LANGE%20%28S%26D%2CDE%2C%20Trade%20Committee%20Chair%20and%20Iuliu%20WINKLER%20%28EPP%2CRO%29%2C%20Rapporteur%2CCecilia%20MALMSTR%C3%96M%2C%20Member%20of%20the%20EC%20incharge%20of%20Trade%20and%20Lilianne%20PLOUMEN%2C%20Dutch%20Minister%20for%20Foreign%20Trade%20" target="_blank"></a>

SOUNDBITE (English), Lilianne PLOUMEN, Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade, The debate on mandatory and voluntary has been key. Now we&rsquo;ve come to this agreement where it&rsquo;s clear that we will have an effective mandatory agreement that will be reviewed in a couple of years. So all in all as I said, many reasons to consider this a very happy day.

SOUNDBITE (English), Cecilia MALMSTR&#214;M, Member of the EC in charge of Trade, The agreed upon framework carries up obligations for the critical upstream supply, including smelters and refiners, to source responsibly as well as for downstream operators importing metal products for the EU. In addition to what is agreed, we from the Commission side will develop incentives to promote transparency by companies big and small; we will develop specific guidelines on conflict minerals for relevant companies with more than 500 employees and we will create a transparency database where companies also can sign up.

SOUNDBITE (English), Cecilia MALMSTR&Ouml;M, Member of the EC in charge of Trade, I am also happy today. I think this proves that EU as the largest trading block in the world can do trade in a responsible and value based way and this is a very important moment. Thank you to everybody involved.

SOUNDBITE (English), Bernd LANGE (S&amp;D, DE), Chair of INTA EP Committee, This a first legislation in this direction in this direction and I am very proud that; it opens the door for a new momentum in the trade policy and of course, there will be a review clause and we will develop it and of course we will also look in other sectors and other value chains so that we can really improve the situation and living conditions of workers and the conditions of environment in the whole value chain of products.