POLITICAL agreement on the basic human rights of workers and on child labour in developing countries should be achievable, the Minister for Tourism and Trade, Mr Kenny, said yesterday.
Announcing details of the informal meeting of EU trade ministers in Dublin next week Mr Kenny said he would be "extremely satisfied if he could get political agreement on the concept of basic human rights for all workers. A political decision should also be made on child labour, he added.
"We need to state the concept of basic rights and then use that to differentiate between exploitation and protectionism", he said.
Next week's meeting comes at a crucial stage in the preparation for the World Trade Organisation conference in Singapore in December.
"The rest of the world is looking to the EU, as the world's largest trading bloc, to provide leadership in the preparation for this conference. We need to ensure a strong EU contribution."
Mr Kenny's other priorities for the conference include ensuring that all the WTO's members honour the market opening commitments they have entered into.
The ministers will also be looking at providing technical assistance for developing countries in complying with directives and some progress on telecommunications and financial services initiatives.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)