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EASTERN EUROPE: Fair Trade Takes Off
By Claudia Ciobanu
BUCHAREST, Sep 29 (IPS) - Fair trade is becoming popular in Central and Eastern Europe, as activist groups
raise awareness of the region's responsibility towards the rest of the world, and
open an increasing number of fair trade shops and cafes.
"Central and Eastern Europe is not used to think of itself as belonging to 'the
developed part of the world'," says Justyna Szambelan, coordinator of the
Coalition for Fair Trade in Poland. "Being closed countries for so long (during
the Communist period) has also contributed to the limited awareness of
problems faced by the global south.
"So it is important to raise awareness that our region does now belong among
the rich and ought to take responsibility for other regions of the world,"
Szambelan told IPS. "The young generation is more self-confident and
understands better their consumer power. They are willing to make a change
and fair trade is an efficient tool to that end."
The organisation coordinated by Justyna Szambelan brings together various
types of local groups promoting fair trade in different towns around Poland:
organisations rooted in church groups (the Polish Fair Trade Organisation
from Gdansk), groups linked to the alter-globalisation movement (the Alan
Turing Foundation from Wroclaw), ecological-green organisations (Polska
Zielona Sie_ from Krakow), and student activist groups (eFTe Group from
Warsaw).
The groups united in the Polish Coalition for Fair Trade follow two lines of
action: they promote the idea of fair trade across the country, and they
commercialise fair trade products.
However, as Szambelan explains, for the moment the products are not
directly imported from countries in the global south; rather, they are bought
from Western European fair trade companies, such as German GEPA and El
Puente and British Divine Chocolate.
The situation in Poland is representative for the region: more and more
people are interested in fair trade, and various groups are successful in
educating the public about the importance of fair trade; but the activity is in
its beginnings, and direct contacts with producers in the global south are still
very few.
The Society for Fair Trade in the Czech Republic, the most active organisation
working on fair trade in the country, currently runs two 'worldshops' and four
specialised selling points. A third of the products they sell come from the
Italian organisation Commercio Alternativo, with the rest being imported from
various Western European fair trade companies, just like in Poland.
However, the activists are working on establishing direct contacts with
producers. According to Tomas Bily, chairman of the Society for Fair Trade,
the group has recently ordered handicrafts directly from the Indian MESH, an
association of small producer groups which is a member of the World Fair
Trade Organisation.
In the past, the group has imported bracelets from the Hazomanga
cooperative in Madagascar and small dolls from the Brazilian company Etica,
and members of the Society for Fair Trade have established direct contacts
with African producers' cooperatives.
Bily declares himself satisfied with the activity of the Society for Fair Trade
since its beginning in 2003: "We are experienced in all kinds of issues related
to fair trade, we developed very good educational materials and programmes,
and we are acknowledged as a training institution in the field of global
development education." Run mostly by volunteers, the group has played an
important role in making the Czech Republic increasingly open to supporting
fair trade.
And the group is now looking beyond the borders of the Czech Republic.
"These months, we are working on the initiation of a new platform for
meeting and cooperation of fair trade organisations from central, eastern and
southern Europe," Tomas Bily told IPS. "The working name of this future
cooperation is CEEFTA, the Central and Eastern European Fair Trade
Organisation. The launch is still to come, but many organisations from
Europe have expressed an interest in this cooperation."
Hungarian fair trade promoters are also working on networking with groups
all over the region, and connections have been established with activist
groups in Eastern Europe, from countries such as Romania and Bulgaria,
where the fair trade movement is in its inception.
According to Gyorgyi Ujszaszi from the Hungarian NGO Vedegylet (Protect the
Future), Hungarian groups working on fair trade promotion have cooperated
very tightly with one another from the beginnings of the movement in
Hungary in 2000.
In 2006, the Fair World Association was established, which currently brings
together 11 Hungarian NGOs working on fair trade promotion. Member
groups have organised critical masses and ethical consumption events, and
they have run educational programmes about fair trade in five cities around
the country: Budapest, Gy_r, Pécs, Nyíregyháza and Székesfehérvár.
The Hungarian Fair Trade movement prides itself in providing the office of
the Hungarian President and that of the Green Ombudsman with fair trade
coffee.
The man who supplies the president of Hungary with fair trade coffee is Dan
Swartz, the owner of Treehugger Dan's Bookstore and Café in Budapest.
Swartz, who describes himself as "an environmental activist first and a
businessman second" runs several bookstore-coffeeshops in the Hungarian
capital, where he sells second-hand English-language books and fair trade
coffees and teas.
Swartz says that he sells two types of mixed coffees, one coming from
Guatemala, Columbia, Peru and Mexico, and the other from Peru and
Tanzania. Both are imported into Hungary from the Italian company Caffe
Agust.
Unlike some of the cafes and worldshops emerging in the region and popular
in Western Europe, which are non-profit, volunteer-run establishments,
Swartz uses a model which does yield a profit and has full-time employees.
The Treehugger's Bookshops-Cafes is an important part of the growing
Hungarian and regional networks promoting fair trade products.
The popularity of his establishments contributes to raising awareness about
fair trade and about the activities of Hungarian fair trade NGOs. And, crucially,
it is contributing to changing patterns of consumption in the country.
Swartz is supplying several bars and cafes in Budapest with fair trade teas and
hot chocolate. And he partners with three restaurants in the Hungarian
capital which sell exclusively fair trade coffee. This is a particularly strong
engagement, Swartz told IPS, as "the restaurants purposely bought their own
coffee machines so they could be independent enough to sell only fair trade.
"Coffee machines are very expensive and cafes often get trapped into 'free'
machine deals from coffee companies," explains Swartz, the trap being that
the cafes are then forced to keep buying expensive coffee from the big
company that provided the machine in the first place.
The success of Swartz's establishment is a sign that there is much space for
fair trade on Central and Eastern European markets. "There are 1,500 organic
farms, 150 environmental NGOs, and 80 organic shops in Hungary," Swartz
says, "so it is obvious there are enough customers and there is enough
awareness to support these organisations and businesses."
(END/2009)
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