Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-19-Speech-3-224"
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"en.20000119.8.3-224"2
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"Madam President, my Group is extremely delighted that this debate is taking place today, particularly as we have spared no effort along with Members of other groups to bring this about.
Obviously we all have different approaches which is demonstrated by our debate and the motions for a resolution tabled at the beginning. Having said this, our Group is pleased about the step forward which the compromise motion represents. This invites the Commission to present a report within six months. The European Parliament can play its role by taking the initiative, even if it does so timidly, on this subject. However, I agree with the previous speaker that, if paragraph 9 were challenged, this motion would clearly lose its substance.
This debate concerns a vital question which increasing numbers of people are legitimately raising. What are the respective places of people and finance in today’s economy? USD 1 800 billion is the volume of money moved every day in the world’s currency markets. This represents over a quarter of the annual global volume of trade in goods and services. By putting finance at the helm, this has reinforced the demands of profitability and toughened the operating conditions everywhere. It has led to a growth in mergers, acquisitions and company restructuring and to gigantic sums being raised with increasing frequency on the financial markets. Unemployment and pressure on employees worldwide is increasing. Openings and real growth are being hampered and the sudden influx or withdrawal of speculative capital is threatening the economies of many countries, to the point of collapse, as in Asia, Russia and Brazil.
Faced with this neoliberal globalisation dominated by the financial markets, demand, as our motion recognises, is developing from a different idea of the world in which common law stipulates a duty of solidarity in an increasingly interdependent world. No one can ignore the challenge to civilisation posed by the lack of nearly one billion jobs and the need to make unprecedented efforts in terms of development and access to information. In this respect, all ideas deserve to be considered, including the Tobin tax which is important, just like other forms of transaction which may be envisaged. This tax could help to check speculation without penalising the activities of the real economy. It could release new resources for investment in people and, at a time when the UNDP estimates the sum needed to eradicate poverty to be USD 40 billion per year, it could allow access for everyone to drinking water and satisfy health needs.
When the debate on the ability of politics to influence economics goes global, the establishment of this tax could become one of the symbols of the political desire to recapture the democratic areas seized by the international financial operators. The Commissioner has said that a minimum number of industrialised countries would be needed to achieve this. I would point out that the European Union is composed of a large number of industrialised countries and, like Mr Désir and several other speakers, I feel that the European Union which we are forming can take the initiative in this respect. In any case, the European Parliament would be honoured to take up the call of the people to control the world in order to achieve a sense of well-being for everyone."@en1
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