Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-21-Speech-1-113"
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"en.20050221.14.1-113"2
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"Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos was a resounding success. The global elite from the business, political and academic communities made it clear that they are fully aware of their responsibility for the problems in the world and that they are willing to act. Bono, the lead singer of the Irish band U2, summed this up very succinctly: if you want money and if you want help, he said, you must talk to those who can give money and provide help. What makes the Davos meeting so important and so useful is that it brings these very people together. The same cannot necessarily be said of the World Social Forum, and the outcome of the latter, I believe, is also far more open to criticism.
It may have surprised the critics to learn that the main topics in Davos were Africa, problems relating to the worldwide growth of poverty, how to shape the globalisation process in such a way that everyone derives some benefit from it and how to bring about fair world trade. We in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe are convinced that free trade is the best development aid. Free trade is what helps countries that want to develop, and free trade is also what motivates developing countries to become increasingly competitive.
The EU should lead the way here. In particular, it should put free trade on the agenda, especially in areas where trade barriers still exist, namely areas covered by its agricultural policy. We in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe are also vehemently opposed to the introduction of any global tax on financial transactions. Making ourselves poorer in this way would not help the poor to become richer. It is also illusory to believe that solidarity is fostered by introducing new taxes, in other words by imposing what is tantamount to a financial penalty on those who are actually supposed to help.
No, the real way to create solidarity is through a worldwide change in people’s perceptions and, quite simply, through willingness to adopt other measures of assistance. We therefore support the priority given to the issue of debt cancellation and find it an eminently sensible course of action, and we believe that those countries which are moving towards democratisation and which are committed to the introduction of sustainable and free economies should be eligible for full debt cancellation.
Such forms of aid, however, will have no long-term impact if they are only one-off gestures. For this reason, let me repeat that free trade is what both the developing and the developed countries need most and what will enable us to progress. If we want world trade to be fairer, our foremost aim should be to make it freer."@en1
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