Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-11-Speech-1-061"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020311.4.1-061"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, although we held a very interesting debate, it was still somewhat one-sided, to my mind. Reference was made repeatedly to both New York and Porto Alegre. In my opinion, both forums are one-sided. If you only had ears for what was said at New York, then too much attention would go to the Enrons of this world, to the detriment of the poor. If, on the other hand, you were to focus on what has been said at Porto Alegre, the economy would soon grind to a halt, for people would then forget to conduct business and that not everything can be solved with Tobin Taxes and magic potions of this kind. That is simply impossible. The majority in this House has therefore repeatedly rejected the Tobin Taxes. This is why we are pleased with the Commission’s conclusions on this score.
So are there no problems at all? There are, but we should not overlook the fact that governance in the countries themselves forms one of the crucial problems. At the moment, we have two examples to illustrate this. One is Afghanistan, where we noticed that the Taliban did not particularly contribute to the development of that country, or their environment. But in Zimbabwe, where elections are currently being held, Mr Mugabe does not contribute to the development of his country either. It is, of course, impossible to expect the international community to rectify the errors of the Taliban and Mugabe overnight. That is a big problem. Unfortunately, the majority of the leaders in this world are still dictators or quasi-dictators, and it saddens me that this is sometimes overlooked.
If, therefore, local government fails to deliver the goods, if the rule of law in a specific country is not respected, then it is simply impossible to expect economic development. This is absolutely out of the question, and anyone who thinks differently believes in fairy tales, in my view. In this connection, quite a few fairy tales have been told here, not by everyone, of course, but by quite a few. Well, if you accept that, then you can also appreciate the restrictions that are simply inherent in international governance.
National governance must be in order, including our own national governance and our European governance. This is why so much is riding on Barcelona. If we achieve good results there, we will enhance our contribution. This does not mean that things will automatically improve globally, but it does mean that we can, at any rate, make our contribution. It is in this light that we should see this, and miracle remedies such as the Tobin Tax would not be effective, because we would then be automatically funding the Mugabes of this world, which would be totally unacceptable and a waste of taxpayers’ money."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples