Debates - Monday 21 February 2005 - Tobias Pflüger

World Social Forum, World Economic Forum

Pflüger (GUE/NGL), on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. –(DE) I should like to start by saying that I am delighted that this debate is taking place, as it is one that I think is urgently needed. Although there has been a great deal of empty talk – particularly on the part of Mr Barroso –it is fashionable nowadays to use impressive-sounding phrases while continuing to pursue the same policies as before. This sort of behaviour is quite typical of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and, indeed, the phrase I would use to describe this Forum was coined by the well-known academic, Elmar Altvater; he described it as a big show, and, unfortunately, a rather unproductive one.

Yet it is interesting to note that there has been a change in the terminology used at the Forum and in the issues with which it deals. It would be no exaggeration to say that it is increasingly the critics of the World Economic Forum who are setting its agenda; these critics met at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, where 150 000 people held debates and protested against neo-liberal and neo-imperial policies.

The Social Forum movement is of crucial importance in terms of opposition to both globalisation and war. The World Social Forum saw a large number of very pragmatic debates held on issues ranging from human rights for all – not only for people in Western countries – to the protection of public property, as well as debates held in protest at cuts in social services, in protest at the war, in protest at debt – with particular reference to the question of when the debts of the countries affected by the tsunami will finally be cancelled – and in protest at poverty. Environmental issues also featured heavily on the agenda, and I took part in a forum on water, for example.

I should like to make it quite clear – and this is a point that must be stressed – that the participants of the World Social Forum levelled their criticism and protests not only at US policy, but also at the policies of the European Commission and the European Council. By following a similar path to that of the United States – or in other words following in the wrong footsteps – the European Union is losing ever more credibility in these circles. The participants of the World Social Forum did not wish to play the game that we see the European Council, the Commission and a great many Members of this House playing time and time again; looking askance at the USA whilst talking up their own policies. Can something along the lines of the Bolkestein directive be a genuine alternative to US policies? The answer to this must be ‘no’, as it is a neo-liberal programme. Can it be a genuine alternative to enshrine, as has been done in the EU Constitutional Treaty, a commitment to armament or an open market economy with free competition? The answer to this must also be ‘no’.

Mr Barroso, you said that the EU is a global player, but the key question that needs to be asked is what kind of a global player it is. It must be made quite clear that free trade is not a foolproof way of reacting appropriately to the kind of policies that are currently being pursued. Instead, real debt relief must be provided; there must be a move away from neo-liberal and economically liberal policies, and the whole process must not go hand in hand with the militarisation of the European Union.

I should like to close with a quote from a declaration adopted at the Forum, one that calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and expresses support for all efforts to bring them home. ‘We support efforts to organise soldiers, conscientious objectors and military families against the war. We support the counter-recruitment campaign and demand political asylum for deserters.’ The message could not be clearer.