Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-05-Speech-4-023"
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"en.20010705.1.4-023"2
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"I would like to make two brief responses to this debate. Two points which should be obvious to all of us, as democrats concerned about issues such as global social equity, but nevertheless important to make.
First of all, most speakers in this short but interesting debate, with one unfortunate exception, have drawn a clear distinction between violence and open discussion of the serious issues which will be on the agenda at Genoa. There is a real danger in occasionally implying that there is a moral equivalence between people who go to these conferences with a balaclava helmet in their back pocket, prepared for violence against police officers and against property they do not like, and the democratically elected leaders of the governments who are meeting in the city where the demonstrations are taking place. Once you blur that distinction, it seems to me that you are on a very slippery slope indeed.
At Göteborg, I do not believe that a government could have made a greater effort to involve civil society in the discussion of what was happening. We still saw those scenes of violence on the streets of that otherwise peaceful city, however. So I think it is very important that the message from a democratically elected assembly like this is very clear: that there is no moral equivalence between violent demonstrators and those who are elected.
Secondly, I will not trouble the Chamber with a detailed exposé of my views on globalisation, but I want to make one obvious point. While it is true that most people have done better out of globalisation this time round, with the combination of opening markets and technology. It is also the case that too many poor people in rich countries have been left behind and too many poor countries have been left behind. Too many poor people face not the opportunities of globalisation but the challenges of globalisation; the dark side of globalisation. The transmittable diseases; the drug trafficking; the illegal trafficking in human beings; the transnational crime; the environmental degradation; and the sheer grinding poverty. The only way you can address issues, such as the decline in aid flows during the 1990s, is through multilateral efforts. Now how you make multilateral efforts without world leaders coming together as they will in Genoa later this month beats me!
You need the democratic leaders of the world to get together to focus on these problems and then to try to give some impetus to solving them. The problem is not that we have these summits, though I wish the media would focus rather more on what is actually discussed at them rather than what happens on the fringes. The problem is not the holding of these summits, the problem is ensuring that the institutions which then try to follow up the summits have the maximum legitimacy and credibility with the world's citizens. They will only achieve that if we are more successful in making multilateral solutions stick. Therefore, when we talk about the Kyoto Protocol at Genoa, it is very important that we are able to do so in a way which leads to action on climate change and not the collapse of what has been an extremely important effort by the international community to address a major change.
I do not understand those who say that we should not have G8 meetings. I would have responded as well to what Mr Bertonotti had to say about the role of the churches. As a member of the church he referred to, I have some views about the way it could contribute rather more to the debate about universal human rights as well to the debate about social equity, but since Mr Bertonotti was unfortunately not able to stay until the end of this debate, I will sit down."@en1
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