Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-10-Speech-1-053"
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".
Mr President, the debate you have included on today’s agenda concerning the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum gives me the opportunity to share with you, on behalf of the Commission, a few thoughts on these two events which took place recently in Davos and Porto Alegre respectively. I say thoughts rather than observations, because I personally did not take part in either one of these events due to a scheduled trip elsewhere in Brazil to make contact with the new Brazilian President and his government.
Much has been made of two opposing views of globalisation, which supposedly characterise these two fora. These two events, however, have many things in common. First of all, they were both created as places of thought and places of influence. They were also both created gradually in order to influence global economic and political development. Lastly, they are also both products of the globalisation that they feed, even though their views of what globalisation is and should be differ. Furthermore, these differences do not just exist between these two fora, but also within each one.
We at the Commission therefore feel that it would be a mistake to analyse these two events from the sole point of view of their differences, their opposition, their confrontation. It is also interesting to note that the main themes of each of these events also have something in common. At the World Social Forum, for example, the debates concerned world democratic order, antimilitarism and the promotion of peace. At Davos, the first theme discussed was ‘security and geopolitics’. The debate at Porto Alegre on what, there, were described as principles, values, human rights, diversity and equality is not entirely unrelated to what at Davos was called a debate on trust and values. Therefore, even if the terms used are different, there is, between these two conferences, a certain degree of convergence on the nature of a fair number of problems that affect our world. I would add that, this year, some people were even warmly welcomed in both fora. I am thinking in particular of the new President of Brazil, Mr Lula da Silva.
The Davos World Economic Forum clearly continues to attract an international elite, mainly from the world of business, but also from politics, the media, NGOs from now on, universities and religious groups. In quantitative terms, that represents 2000 participants and this is clearly a great deal less than the 100 000 people present at Porto Alegre, which actually attracted five times as many people as the last time this Forum was held, in 2001. As political leaders, we cannot fail to take seriously an expression of public opinion on this scale. This expression, in my opinion, reflects a deep feeling of dispossession felt by a significant number of citizens from every country of the world in the face of the globalisation process. There is a clear message behind all this movement: the citizens are telling us that they do not want to suffer globalisation. They want it to be regulated, they want it to be controlled, they want it to be monitored, they want it to be mastered. They want globalisation to be a project that integrates rather than divides the whole planet.
What is this globalisation of which we have spoken so much again this year at Porto Alegre and at Davos? First of all, globalisation is not a project, it is a movement, it is the product of the convergence of technological, economic and political processes, whose path is being mapped out more and more clearly before our eyes. I do not believe that there is a plot behind globalisation. There is a logic which is the one that dominates our world: market capitalism. The instability and injustice that were condemned both at Davos and Porto Alegre are one of the consequences of the effectiveness of this market capitalism. In the absence of world regulation and adequate internal policies, this injustice, this instability, this unpredictability are rising today, increasing inequality and widening, in a number of cases, the North-South divide, while continuing to threaten the environment.
In this regard, our point of view in the Commission is clear. To those, on one side or the other, furthermore, who would have us choose between growth and justice, we would answer that we refuse to choose between growth and justice, or justice and growth. We need both. We must accept market globalisation, because it releases tremendous development potential. However, we must provide a global regulatory framework for it in order to ensure that this development will be fairer and more sustainable than it is at present. From that point of view, the multilateral negotiation instigated at Doha in November 2001, within the WTO, is in line with this dual objective of opening up the markets, on the one hand, and rules and the integration of the southern countries, on the other, while guaranteeing the latter increased access to the northern countries according to the degree of preferential treatment.
In a way, this global regulation is the synthesis that we are trying to achieve of Porto Alegre and Davos. This synthesis is difficult and painful. It is taking a while to establish for at least two reasons. The first is that it is coming up against powerful interests, as illustrated by the battle underway in Geneva over access for developing countries to essential medicinal products, which we will discuss again later on. The second is that regulation implies, if we are serious, a convergence of joint preferences on matters such as the environment, health, workers’ rights, the place of public services and cultural diversity. We know that, within Parliament itself, the discussions on this subject are sometimes heated. It is therefore easy to understand that addressing these subjects in order to find an international agreement is naturally going to be a long-term project. It is the task of organisations such as the World Labour Organisation, the FAO, the WTO and various standardisation bodies in the field of the environment, health and cultural diversity to reconcile free trade with respect for minimum standards.
We must therefore ensure that the multilateral system is developed, reinforced, and built more solidly, so that it allows countries to adapt differently to market capitalism. In this way, developing countries would be able to implement effective, heterodox strategies to catch up with other countries, in a number of cases, while we, the countries with more advanced economies, would be able to make swifter progress on the road to social justice and environmental protection. I feel that this is the message that has reached us here in Europe this year, from both Porto Alegre and Davos."@en1
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