Mandelson "naive and ignorant"

By Penny Hawthorne | 3 September 2005

Julia Finch reports in today's issue of The Guardian that Peter Mandelson has been getting quite a bashing:

The founder of the Monsoon retail empire has accused the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, of being "arrogant" and "naive" in his handling of the textiles trade crisis, which has left millions of Chinese-made clothes piling up at European ports.

Peter Simon, who controls the 500-strong Monsoon and Accessorize chains, says Mr Mandelson has displayed "a basic ignorance" of how European retailers do business with Chinese suppliers.

His intervention came as EU diplomats meeting in Brussels failed to reach agreement on releasing millions of garments held in ports around Europe. Mr Mandelson has been trying to win backing from the 25 EU member states for a plan that would see the clothes released, but France, Italy and Spain wanted concessions from the Chinese before they agreed.

While Christian Aid was publicly backing quotas earlier in the year, Oxfam trade spokesperson Amy Barry has attacked the quota system:

This is a classic example of EU hypocrisy. On the one hand they are preaching the benefits of market liberalisation and pressuring poor countries to open their markets, on the other they are re-erecting barriers to trade with developing countries to protect their own producers.