Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-013"
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"en.20050511.3.3-013"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am most grateful to the members of the other groups who have given their support to our proposal to debate the issue of the World Bank, even though I was perfectly aware, like the majority of us, that the Council could not say anything very different from what Mr Schmit has declared this morning. We must, however, be aware of the fact that an unsatisfactory situation can and must be changed, moreover because this seems to me to be a sector in which political will can assist us.
We do not have to resort to major articles of the Treaty in order to ensure that the Council and the Commission, together with Parliament – and that is absolutely crucial – can work to improve the question of European coordination, or at least to put it on the agenda. European coordination should not, however, be confined solely to the perfectly worthwhile work of technical and financial cooperation, but it must also be focused on the policies of the World Bank – policies precisely on which we have no say at all – on appointment procedures and on the criteria for granting funding. I believe that those are the three points on which the actions of the European Parliament should be better focused: we can do so if we want to.
I believe, Mr President-in-Office – and you can correct me if you should choose to respond – that this is not an issue of competence, but of political will: if the Council so chooses, it can act, as can the Commission, and the same holds for Parliament.
With regard to the appointments procedure, we very well know that directives were issued between 2000 and 2001 to make it more transparent and acceptable. Those directives have been ignored and that has a powerful political significance: once again it is not an issue of a procedural or institutional nature. The United States turned down the first candidate proposed by the Europeans to head the International Monetary Fund; the countries of Europe did not do the same when Mr Wolfowitz was presented as the candidate to direct the World Bank. They could have done so. Two telephone calls were enough to convince a couple of European prime ministers or Heads of Government, and the executive directors were completely bypassed: I believe that that would have been perfectly preventable if we had so desired.
As regards the quality of World Bank policies, today we have no particular guarantees that certain small breakthroughs initiated by Mr Wolfersohn will be continued: I am referring to governance and to the issue of corruption. I believe that we should also seek to make an impression in this area. There is a series of extremely controversial projects, such as the large dam on the Nam Theun river in Laos or the mining project in Guatemala, that stir up opposition right across the board, and yet our executive directors have given them the green light. If this Parliament and public opinion had been aware of these issues, they would in all likelihood have acted differently. In addition to claims of powerlessness, I would also like to hear some evidence of a willingness to act."@en1
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