Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-22-Speech-4-060"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080522.7.4-060"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Van Hecke on this report. A few weeks ago I visited the IMF and the World Bank on behalf of the Committee on Development and at that meeting I asked what the world would be like between 2030 and 2050. The response I got was that China will be the most powerful country in the world; many of the developing countries will have changed; America will still be powerful, but not as powerful as it is today; India and Brazil will be very powerful.
Never before have our selfish interests and our selfless interests coincided as they do now with the need to assist the developing world. In the past I used to be told that I spent too much time with my individual constituents who had poor housing conditions. My response to that was that you cannot tell somebody who is on fire that we are going to build a fire station. You have to plan for the fire station, but you have to help the individual at the same time. This has to be our approach to the developing world. If we do not do it, China and others are going to do it. It is our selfish interest as well as our selfless interest to do this.
I come from a country which in recent history suffered famine, where the population today should be over 20 million. It has gone over six million for the first time since the mid-19th century. We have a post-colonial past. If you look at Ireland’s history, what we have been able to do with investment in infrastructure, largely from the European Union – to which we are now about to become, thank God, a net contributor – is an indication of what can be done when you give people the tools with which to do the job.
I urge the Commissioner, when he goes to this meeting in Accra, to make sure that the European Union is singing off the same hymn sheet. Lisbon will give us the instruments with which to play a more effective role in the world. Make sure we do it in the area of development aid. It is in our interests as well as in the interests of the people in the developing world."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples