Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-25-Speech-4-050"
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"en.20020425.3.4-050"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall come straight to the point. We must quite simply cancel the debts of highly indebted poor countries and put in place an arbitration procedure for intermediary countries that are in crisis, such as Argentina. Most of these debts are illegitimate, as they were arranged by corrupt, even dictatorial governments, and have, in fact, never been used to benefit the population. The total amount of third-world debt has already been repaid six times over in interest. What a paradox this is! Today, the debt repayments made by the countries of the south are higher than the development aid provided by the north. Having pillaged the raw materials of the south at the lowest possible price, the north is now benefiting from this financial flux and is maintaining its de facto domination, which consequently makes the problem of poverty worse.
We must, therefore, cancel this debt. However, the money that is saved from doing this must be reinvested, not in arms or in anything else, but in social budgets that will first and foremost improve public services, health and education. Unfortunately, the Monterrey conference did not tackle this issue in any depth, nor that of introducing a tax on financial transactions. As for setting the official development aid target of 0.39% of GDP, this is no victory. We still have a long way to go before we reach 0.7%. In ten years’ time, will we be satisfied with the 0.22% that we have formally committed? No, I think that we must take action now. We must cancel the debt now. We must grant a great deal more than 0.39% of GDP for aid, and I personally think that the Monterrey conference was a failure. It was a failure for the European Union, but, more importantly, it was a failure for the countries of the south."@en1
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