Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-17-Speech-3-160"
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"en.20000517.9.3-160"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are 800 million Africans today and there will be twice as many in 25 years’ time, and obviously they are not the only ones to be living in developing countries. Many people in Africa are sinking into poverty and increasing numbers of them are immigrating to European countries, which are in the throes of a demographic depression. It must be remembered that this poverty coincides with the botched decolonisation of the 1960s which plunged many of these countries into poverty and ethnic conflict, related also to the establishment of dictatorships which were corrupt and, more often than not, it must be acknowledged, Socialist.
What we would like to say is that cancelling poor countries’ debt is no doubt a laudable intention and we are in favour of staggering payments
but we would like to see the root of the trouble being tackled with the same seriousness. We may note, for example, that until the 1990s, the African states which were still linked to France by means of economic, monetary and military cooperation agreements represented a haven of stability and relative prosperity. The same is true of the states which have maintained links with western powers by means of economic agreements of this type.
We think this is a more serious solution to the problems of the third world than the outrageous recommendation which the UN made on 4 January to the effect that, in order to offset its falling birth rate, Europe should prepare to accept 159 million immigrants from African countries over the next 25 years. Turning Europe into a third-world country is not, we feel, the way to help the third world achieve a genuine degree of economic development.
The real solution is in Africa in the form of a development policy which enables Africans to live in their own countries, which raises the question of the alleged benefits of free trade. Our opinion is that there are no real benefits or, if there are, then only for countries at a comparable economic and social level, and that it is only when protected by secure frontiers and customs rights that these countries will gradually progress from the cottage industry phase to that of industrialisation."@en1
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