Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-13-Speech-1-062"
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"en.19991213.3.1-062"2
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"Mr President, following the Seattle failure, we still have all the same problems, but nothing is the same as it was before. Our first task, therefore, is to make a lucid diagnosis of what happened in order to assume our responsibilities in full knowledge of the facts.
I have heard the analysis which Mr Lamy has given, as it were, from inside the institution. I would like to offer an outsider’s point of view. In Seattle, I had the opportunity to have discussions lasting many hours with these men and women, the representatives of society, as it were, who came from all four corners of the earth. I was also able to hold talks with some of the main organisers of this mobilisation of forces. They naturally gauged the influence and the support they enjoyed throughout the world: they were, therefore, enthusiastic and determined, but in no way violent, populist or nationalistic, as some observers saw fit to caricature them.
They were well informed, thoughtful, adult in their attitude. They meant to be involved in decisions as responsible citizens, and no longer just treated as passive consumers. They were not challenging opening up to the world, but the globalisation of a mercantile attitude. Far from identifying with the champions of their own countries in the world-wide economic war, the different people involved were together censuring the capitalism of the multinationals, the relentless quest for profits, treating the natural world as a commodity, going as far as to patent living things, the levelling of cultures, the entrenchment of inequalities practically everywhere, especially between the North and South. Their ambition was quite simply to make the modern world more civilised, to make globalisation more human. “People before benefits” was one of their favourite slogans.
We must listen to them, as Mr Somavia wisely noted, the present Director General of the International Labour Organisation, which four years ago was the moving spirit behind the International Conference in Copenhagen, where all the world’s Heads of State undertook to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Listening to them would involve changing the WTO radically. This starts, in my opinion, with the current framework of the WTO, a framework which is not really universal but is truly unequal, as Mr Lannoye very clearly depicted. It also involves the current tasks of the WTO which set the objective of capturing market shares in precedence to absolutely everything, including the commitments made by the international community as regards social, environmental or health matters, or the development of the south. Changing the WTO, finally, involves its current mode of operation, which is still based on Summit diplomacy and secrecy at a time when citizens are becoming actively involved in world affairs.
This is why I am arguing, Mr President, in favour of a proper study offering a critical analysis of past experience, followed by the Union taking the offensive in favour of a more democratic organisation, open to society, which is truly universal and which steadfastly overcomes the divide between commercial considerations and the demands of sustainable and socially cohesive development. This would be one more fine ambition for Europe’s emerging policy on foreign affairs and security."@en1
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