Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-240"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20031021.14.2-240"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, honourable Members of the European Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to open my speech by thanking you most sincerely for having invited me to address your noble House. I am fully aware of the significance of this honour and the citizens of Senegal and of Africa will I am sure, understand that this honour is intended for their entire continent, which is often ignored, but is today invited to express itself through my humble person.
I will simply add that this cooperation with the European Union and with some countries such as France, together with international aid enabled us to achieve annual growth of 5.6% in 2001, unfortunately countered by the disastrous consequences of unseasonable rains affecting the north of our country. We nevertheless managed to control the situation and, in 2002, we doubled the volume of private investment. I have actually pursued a free market policy – as they say, only by putting the theory into practice will we see whether it works – to show that, in fact, development policy must be geared towards a massive appeal for private capital to help our development. I know that many people do not agree with me on this point and I shall come back to it later. Thank God, however, this liberal and proactive policy has borne fruit. Last year, our corn production stood at no more than 100 000 tonnes. I then set the target of one million tonnes, and everyone said that this was impossible and that it was a crazy project! I can now tell you that we have now achieved half of our target, in other words 500 000 tonnes of corn, which has never happened in the entire history of Senegal, ...
... not to mention the remarkable increase seen in other crops such as sesame.
As for relations with the developed countries, our main problem, as you know, is that of subsidies. I will only say one thing about this matter, because I already expressed my opinion in
:
we are in favour of free trade, providing it is fair trade
We are in favour of free trade. We know that it is needed if the global economy is to develop – I am no longer talking only about Africa or Europe here – as is the development of world trade, of world production, trading, etc. we all know this, but it will only work if everyone observes the rules.
Unfortunately, the developed countries, including your own, breach these rules providing subsidies totalling USD one billion per day. I am not calling for subsidies to be abolished. I am enough of a realist to know that European or US political leaders cannot simply tell their farmers tomorrow that they have given an international commitment and subsidies have been abolished. This is not an option.
The United States accounts for almost 20% of world cotton production and 39% of world cotton exports. In 2001, exporters from sub-Saharan African countries lost USD 302 million, of which two-thirds or EUR 191 million came from the West African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Togo. These amounts might appear laughable to you but to us they are enormous. As a result, my position is simply to advocate financial compensation until these subsidies are in fact abolished, since everyone claims to be in favour of abolishing them. When President Bush passed through Dakar, he said to me: ‘I am in favour of abolishing subsidies. If the Europeans abolish them, so will I’. I replied ‘Fine, Mr President, but until you do, we will still face major problems’. What we are calling for, then, is financial compensation until subsidies are abolished.
With regard to the WTO, I dared to say, in the article to which I have referred, on the eve of the WTO meeting, that instead of a binding agreement that satisfies no one, it would be better to have no agreement at all and to take the time to discuss matters frankly. I must say that today, quite frankly, I have no faith in the WTO. I believe that things are now happening at such a widespread, global level, that attempting to find points on which everyone can agree is simply wishful thinking.
I also wish to thank you, however, for having contributed, on more than one occasion in the past, to calling for my freedom, which had been denied me when, during the twenty-six years I spent as a member of the opposition, I had at times to deal with an authority that had little respect for democracy and human rights and which interrogated me, arrested me or threw me into prison according to its whim. The Parliament in Strasbourg adopted numerous threatening resolutions demanding my release.
This is why what I recommend instead is direct competition between continents or sub-continents, like the competition between the European Union and the ACP countries or between the European Union and Africa.
I have faith in this formula that we established with you a very long time ago, only to abandon it later in order to move towards giving discussions a more global approach. We know today that globalisation has reached a dead end and that we would need to return to the European Union-ACP, European Union-Africa formula. I am not saying that the results would be particularly spectacular, but I do have faith in this type of mechanism. I have faith in the type of agreement that we concluded in Cotonou, on 23 January 2000, which introduces the requirement for enhanced political dialogue, without which there can be no economic cooperation. It also promotes a participative approach which involves the private sector and civil society, getting poverty reduction underway. It streamlines cooperation instruments and creates a new framework for economic and trade cooperation by concluding new agreements designed to include all of these provisions in the world trade system gradually and harmoniously. This is the type of agreement I believe in.
As to the results, they are the results that we have achieved. I shall sum up by saying that the agreement between West Africa and the European Union, for example, provides for sums of around EUR 435 million, which I believe to be quite inadequate. Having said that, however, I still make a distinction between principles and money, etc. This is the stance that I have always adopted at the G8, and I have always said that the most important element is the commitment, the political will to deal with a given situation. How we get there is another story. Some people say that EUR 10 billion is needed, others say EUR five billion, but we must not condemn mechanisms and agreements simply because we have found the various contributions to be inadequate. I shall say a few words about this in a while.
All of Africa is today set on the same course thanks to NEPAD, the ‘New Partnership for Africa’s Development’
NEPAD is the fusion of the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme (MAP), drawn up by my brothers Thabo Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo and Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the OMEGA plan, proposed by Senegal. What does MAP bring to the deal? MAP draws our attention to the fact that Africa is not poor but has been impoverished; by three centuries of slavery, by colonisation and by an international mechanism that is today leading to poorer trading terms. MAP also appeals to the African renaissance. The OMEGA plan, which I myself drafted, is essentially an economic plan, designed to show that we must focus on infrastructures, as the Europeans and the Americans have done and as Russia, at the time the Soviet Union, did. This plan shows that without infrastructures, it is impossible even to develop agriculture, because it is impossible even to make the link between centres of production and centres of consumption or of export.
NEPAD raises the principle of mass development in Africa, so as to bridge the gulf that separates us from the developed countries and we believe that this can be done. The problem is how to achieve this. NEPAD bases its approach on three fundamental options that I shall call the long-term parameters. The first of these is, of course, good public and private governance, without which public administration itself is impossible and without which we will never attract capital. The second parameter consists of the regions. Instead of relying on States, NEPAD relies on the regional dimension, which is larger and has a larger market, thereby allowing economies of scale to develop. The third and last parameter is NEPAD’s appeal to the private sector.
In this regard, I must say that whatever efforts are made, among other things, to provide aid and to cooperate, resources will never be sufficient, but on the other hand, if we offer the private sector the right conditions in which to invest in Africa, its actions will have the same influence as on the development of the developed countries, such as France, the United States, Canada, Japan and others.
In support of these three fundamental options, NEPAD selected eight sectors – infrastructure, education and training, health, agriculture, the new information and communication technologies, the environment, energy and, lastly, access to the markets of the developed countries. Each of these sectors is considered to be a priority and we have drawn up all projects at regional, interregional or continental level. The remaining question is how all this is to be funded?
I must say with regard to this matter that in May, when I stopped off in Japan, that country offered to write off EUR three billion dollars’ worth of debt and this gesture was confirmed recently at the third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III). Japan also offered USD 1.06 billion for infrastructures, around USD 600 million for education and health and almost USD 400 million to support Japanese companies that wish to invest in Africa. I am not going to focus on the health or education sectors, but I must say that I share the view that education and training constitute the key sector for development. Incidentally, Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan and others are living proof of this, directing almost 70% of their budget towards education and training. Malaysia dedicates 35% to these areas. Since the change of government, Senegal has increased its budget for education, which now stands at almost 35%. I hope to get it close to 50% before I leave office as Senegal’s Head of State.
One of NEPAD’s concerns is digital solidarity. I was invited to the preparatory meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society, which will be taking place in Geneva, and I proposed the concept of digital solidarity, which I should like to ask the European Parliament to support. Incidentally, following several working meetings, on the recommendation of experts, this concept was adopted and forms part of the final draft resolution of the Conference, which will take place in Geneva, in December.
This somewhat strange experience has led me, as Senegal’s Head of State, to ensure that a number of provisions were adopted, not least in the Constitution, concerning the protection of religious minorities, – making it compulsory for the State itself to protect them – women’s rights, including for example access to land for women, because that was a problematic issue, equal rights to employment for men and women and many other provisions, such as criminal penalties for sexual mutilation.
What is involved? This is an attempt to find the means with which to help everyone who is cut off from the information society by providing equipment, such as telephones, Internet, web sites, in order to bring them up to the level of the information society that I defined on the basis of quantitative criteria, which have furthermore been accepted by the experts.
What precisely is involved? What would happen is that – on a voluntary basis, because this is not a tax – between 2 and 5 dollars would go towards purchasing a computer or 4 or 5 dollars towards creating a web site. Sums of money collected in this way could, according to estimates, be very considerable indeed – several hundred million or even billions of dollars, – and would help to buy equipment from the North to equip the South. Everyone would benefit – it is a real win-win situation: businesses in the West would supply their equipment and we would be able to use it.
I should like to conclude by saying that our action in Africa should be seen in the context of achieving peace and security, without which nothing can be done. Today, unfortunately, there are still many conflict hot-spots: when one is put out, another erupts somewhere else, but we do try to keep them under control. We have managed to control the conflicts in Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, in Côte d'Ivoire, where the situation remains tense and in Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, we still have some concerns about Guinea-Conakry and Mauritania, in short, countries where elections are soon to be held.
I should like to draw a few brief conclusions. It is not really wise to draw conclusions – it is more sensible to raise issues, but as it happens, I would like to close by expressing a conviction. This conviction relates to the way in which we will be able to get out of the current situation. Despite all of these aid programmes and programmes for cancelling or rescheduling debt – every possibility has been put forward – despite all of these efforts, we on the ground sometimes have the impression that we are living in the nineteenth century. Proof of this is that everyone agrees today on the need to combat poverty, but has this poverty always existed, or has it been created? I personally believe that this is a relative, and not absolute poverty, created by a new relationship between the underdeveloped and developed countries, which are going through a process of change. Africa’s absolute needs today are no longer the same as they were in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is therefore the entire issue of the interdependence of basic needs that must today be addressed through global relationships. We must, consequently, observe and seek solutions, but without getting rid of what we have already, which can always be improved on. In order to achieve all of this, I believe that we must appeal to the private sector, which has bolstered the development of Europe, the United States and Japan. I think that we might be surprised at how much the private sector will help. Countries must not be left completely unregulated, but we must, by means of national regulations, which everyone must respect, establish good governance and create security, or ‘profitability’ which is the free transfer of profits. Personally, I have faith in the free market, not a completely unbridled market, but free nonetheless, which sets me apart from some liberals who perhaps share some of the principles that I hold dear, such as political liberalism, the protection of human rights, and so on, …
… without approving of State intervention. I, however, believe that State intervention is essential, first of all to make good any shortfalls and then to act in sectors in which, in any event, private capital would not be interested in getting involved.
This is the message that I wanted to leave with you; a somewhat provocative one perhaps, because I was led to believe that in the European Union, many people did not share my view of the free market. I was given the opportunity to explain my point of view to you and thereby open the debate on an issue that is extremely important: that of the choice of strategy for the development of a country, and even of an entire continent.
I also wish, following on from this brief description of something that is clearly revolutionary, since no Constitution has ever contained provisions of this nature, to tell you that I have added to the Constitution the right to demonstrate. Given that during my time in the desert, our demonstrations were broken up with tear gas, I have ensured that Senegal’s Constitution states that all communities and groups who have anything they wish to express can go onto the streets and demonstrate with banners, ...
... provided that they observe the law. I wish to tell you, furthermore, that the Liberal International will be holding its meeting in Dakar and that, of course, the opposition has taken this opportunity to hold a demonstration. I hope this does not shock you if you join us on that extraordinary day.
I should like, ladies and gentlemen, to keep my speech relatively short because I intend to provide you with a document that will contain all the necessary information. I therefore wish briefly to address the issue of cooperation between the European Union and Senegal, the set of problems relating to international trade, cooperation between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), relations between the European Union and the African Union, peace and security.
Starting with the matter of cooperation with Senegal, I must say that it cannot be faulted. The European Union is the major donor to Senegal; its presence is felt in all sectors of our economy – health, the road network, agriculture, decentralisation – and supports all our efforts to achieve sustainable growth. I think I have said enough on the matter."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"(The House rose and loudly applauded the speaker)"1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples