Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-10-Speech-3-642"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20100210.33.3-642"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Madam President, as other speakers have said, the full impact of the financial crisis is now becoming clear. If you believe the Commission, trade dropped by 10% in 2009. If you believe the IMF, it dropped by 12.3% in 2009.
The ILO itself reckons that 212 million people worldwide were unemployed in 2009, a 34 million increase from 2007.
Sub-Saharan Africa, which had a fiscal surplus of 0.3% of GDP in 2008, had a deficit of 6.4% in 2009. In other words a surplus of three billion turned into a deficit of 64 billion, taking 67 billion out of Sub-Saharan Africa’s spending power.
All parts of the world have suffered because of this crisis, but the third world, the developing world, has suffered the most. And that is why today Oxfam have today launched a call for what they have called a ‘Robin Hood tax’.
This is a variation on the Tobin Tax, which was to tax speculative trade on financial products, stocks, bonds, commodities and currency transactions. The Robin Hood tax represents a tiny 0.05% of transactions, but would raise billions for development projects in the third world.
The Millennium Development Goals need between 34 billion and 45 billion to be met and the banks received a trillion-dollar bail-out. Banks should do more than simply pay back that cash: they should repair the damage they have done to wider society.
So this Robin Hood tax would be a good way to tackle poverty and to ensure that the banks make a socially useful contribution.
Will the Commissioner look seriously at Oxfam’s proposal, which has had an indication of support from the British Prime Minister, and put his weight behind it as a European Commissioner for Trade?"@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples