Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-21-Speech-1-111"
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"en.20050221.14.1-111"2
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".
Mr President, earlier we heard an excellent speech from the President of the Commission on how we need to work together and cooperate to make Europe the most competitive and economically prosperous entity on the globe. We are facing challenges from China, India, Brazil and other countries. We have heard a clarion call from the President asking us to throw out the old models and to create new ones in order to compete.
In that context I want to say that we agree that the World Economic Forum was a tremendous success, as global representatives from governments, businesses and civil society managed to agree on a coherent set of principles for action: matching global trade with sustainable development. Many of these – such as concrete measures to liberalise trade and accelerate aid to the poorest countries – will be of great benefit in helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate all those involved in the World Economic Forum.
At this point, however, and less diplomatically than the President of the Commission, I must also make some remarks about the World Social Forum, which proved to be something of a disappointment by comparison. Poverty reduction is the largest of the Millennium Development Goals and, as one main aim of the World Social Forum's participants, one would have expected the Forum to produce some concrete recommendations as to how this might be achieved.
Yet even journalists who were generally in favour of the World Social Forum had to admit that its basic objective was not to produce a unified document suggesting concrete ideas for fear of spoiling the diversity of opinions, and that the resulting proposals contain many contradictions. We in the European Parliament respect diversity and want to hear the views of world social experts as part of our commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. But, logically, we cannot do both simultaneously – one thing and its opposite. I would, therefore, call for more unified proposals from the World Social Forum in the hope of achieving those goals more rapidly and without wasting further time.
In this regard I was also disappointed that, as the President of the Commission said, although we are the largest economy there were very few people from the European Parliament in the World Economic Forum. Do the people who are arranging these matters consider that the elected representatives of the people of Europe are also important in the decision-making process of the World Economic Forum?"@en1
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