By Marina Sarli, Fair Trade Hellas
Fair Trade Hellas was one of several CSOs joining the annual Fair Trade European Breakfast with MEPs at the European Parliament. On 10 October, a group of Members of European Parliament (MEPs), members of civil society organisations and Fair Trade producer organisations and networks gathered in the Members Salon in the European Parliament for the annual Fair Trade breakfast. The breakfast was hosted by MEP Bernd Lange (Germany) from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and Chair of the International Trade Committee, and organised by the Fair Trade Advocacy Office. Over 140 participants attended.
Thanks to a subgrant from the project Trade Fair, Live Fair, we had the chance to meet our Greek MEP Stelios Koumporoupolos at the event, who showed strong interest in the concept of domestic fair trade and on the standardization of fairest productive processes.
MEP Bernd Lange said, “I am very happy to host the first fair trade breakfast of this term in the European Parliament. European trade policies should contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals worldwide and fair trade is an interesting tool to achieve those goals. It also helps to make people in Europe aware that what we consume here has an impact on the environment and the conditions in which goods are produced elsewhere. We as MEPs have the responsibility to make sure that human rights are protected throughout the whole supply-chain of goods that we import.”