By John Axiak

In September 06 Nathalie Grima and I represented Koperattiva Kummerċ Ġust at the IFAT (International Fair Trade Associations) Annual General Meeting that took place in Paris. Being a novice in many of the core issues relating to Fair Trade the AGM was the perfect place for me to grasp concepts which ordinary Fair Trade consumers are not aware of. During the sessions I met with representatives from peer organizations and learnt about the advocacy work which they are doing in their respective countries on Fair Trade. I thought about sharing a bit of what has excited me during these three day AGM with x-malta readers and familiarize some Fair Trade jargon to readers.

One field which the Fair Trade movement has done a lot of progress in during the past two years is the legislative aspect. On the 6^th of July this year the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed its second resolution on Fair Trade. Amongst others, the resolution calls on the European Commission to increase its public support for Fair Trade and urged the commission to come forward with a recommendation. By public support the resolution refers to the so-called “Aid for Trade” scheme. This fund will afford producers in developing countries financial incentives to get a Fair Trade label on their products. This scheme is just one of the numerous interesting provisions of the resolution and it demonstrates how seriously the EU is taking Fair Trade.

Although the European Parliament has passed such a resolution we are still far from a European Directive that will oblige EU member states to enact a national law that will recognize Fair Trade. Despite this, countries where the Fair Trade movement has stronger roots, such as Italy, Belgium, Great Britain and the Netherlands, have started the process of enacting a law that will recognize Fair Trade.

The essential reason why such laws are needed is to protect genuine Fair Traders from Traders who claim to be doing Fair Trade but not respecting the high standards that genuine Fair Traders offers. We have already witnessed attempts by traders to claim that they are making Fair Trade by just paying producers slightly more than the average wage while ignoring all the other standards which the Fair Trade movement has strived for. In a nutshell such standards include:

The AGM ended by all the participants marching from the conference hall to the Eiffel Tower holding the Global Journey Banner (GJB). The GJB is a worldwide tour of the IFAT fair trade banner and has traveled to more than 50 countries to promote the message of Fair Trade.