Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-14-Speech-1-198"
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"en.20090914.27.1-198"2
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"Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, while I have the pleasure of putting this oral question to you on behalf of the Committee on Development, sadly I do not have the pleasure of presenting you with the resolution on the same subject, adopted unanimously by this committee.
The Committee on Development is asking you to take action to eradicate tax haven abuses, tax evasion and the illegal flows of capital from developing countries.
According to a Norwegian report published in June, the figures of which have been verified, the illegal flows leaving developing countries are ten times the amount of our development aid. This shows just how much is at stake.
There is a need to implement a new binding financial agreement that will force transnational companies to declare the profits they make and the taxes they pay, on a country by country basis, in order to ensure transparency in respect of what they pay in each of the countries in which they operate.
Moreover, a radical reform of the system must take place involving, in particular, the introduction of new democratic and transparent regulations for trade and the international financial systems.
The responsibilities are huge, the challenges many, and the task arduous, but, now more than ever, the European Union must step up to the plate and lead these reforms.
My colleagues from the Committee on Development and I worked tirelessly to ensure that the resolution was voted on and debated in plenary before the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.
However, apart from my group, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, and the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left, no other political group supported our request to put this resolution on the agenda, and yet it is vital if we want the European Parliament to play more of a part in defining the European Union’s external policy and to have real strength behind its proposals.
Ladies and gentlemen, of what benefit will it be to us to vote on this resolution, which was to put the European Parliament’s requests and proposals to the members of the G20 and, more specifically, to those of our Member States who sit on it, as well as to the European Commission, at the October plenary session, that is, after the Pittsburgh Summit?
Besides the fact that this devalues the work accomplished, we cannot be content with this role of current affairs commentator either. That is not our job. Let us leave it to those whose job it is and who do it with professionalism: journalists.
Developing countries need us now more than ever. While our fellow citizens have not been spared, the global economic and financial crisis has had a far more lasting effect on the populations of developing countries. However, the financial institutions have not made these populations the main beneficiaries of the emergency loans, since very few of them satisfy the required conditions.
The countries of Africa have thus received only 1.6% of the loans granted by the IMF since the last G20 meeting in London and the increase in the IMF’s resources. The rest has gone to developed countries, European ones in particular.
Maintaining the European economic system was imperative of course, but this must not make us forget the extreme poverty that is raging at our borders; extreme poverty made worse by a crisis for which we carry the burden of responsibility.
Public development aid must be increased as a matter of urgency. Already, most of the Member States do not meet the conditions required by the OECD since 1970, and we are facing new emergencies without having new funds. We must therefore find new sources of funding, not least by reforming the current system."@en1
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