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Around Belgium Prime Minister Open Letter- Globalization - Global Policy Forum Around Belgium Prime Minister Open Letter
By Susan George and Adam Ma’ anit
Attac
December 12, 2001
Thank you for having taken the trouble to address a detailed open letter to "the anti-globalisation protesters". You are, to my knowledge, the only government official to have done so and your current position as President of the European Union makes your initiative doubly important. We are grateful for your willingness to engage in dialogue. My response reflects my own views, not those of ATTAC-France, other national ATTAC movements or the Transnational Institute. I believe however that they broadly reflect the consensus of the citizens movement. I will divide this response into three parts: an overview of our common ground; a review of certain common misunderstandings concerning the movement and its campaigns; our disagreements and areas where we will need much more discussion if we are to come to an understanding, assuming that one is wanted or envisaged.
1. Common Ground
You are correct that most politics have become "sterile and technocratic", not to say timid and self-centred, causing many people, especially young people, to despair of the very notion of politics. We agree that globalisation will not necessarily benefit the vast majority of the third world poor and it is indeed "shameful that more than 1.2 billion people still do not have access to medical care or a decent education". We agree further that Europe should stop barring textile and garment exports from the South but we should also seek ways to improve the deplorable working conditions of those who produce them. We should bar agricultural export subsidies everywhere, including our own, because they contribute to ruining third world farmers.
We too would favour what you call "ethical globalisation" and recognise the need for powerful institutions to enforce it. Your regard for democracy and human rights also strikes a responsive chord. Your concern for all of the earth's inhabitants is laudable, even though you say it is "only natural" that you should be even more concerned with the interests of transnational oil or large European farmers. We still have enough common ground to make a good basis for discussion.
2. Misconceptions, Misunderstandings
Your letter reflects certain common misunderstandings concerning the citizens movement, which is not surprising as most of the media have done everything possible to promote them. Among these are:
WE ARE NOT "ANTI-GLOBALISATION": This term is itself an invention of the media and a complete misnomer for the citizens movement which is pro-solidarity, pro-democracy, pro-sustainable development and thoroughly internationalist. We work with partners all over the world and all year long; we shall meet them again soon at the huge Porto Alegre [Brazil] forum to continue our pursuit of common strategies.
While it would, as you say, be useless and foolish to oppose a more integrated world, we are nonetheless deeply opposed to the present form of globalisation and there is nothing "sudden" about our convictions. We see globalisation as it now exists driven almost exclusively by the interests of transnational corporations, financial market operators and an elite minority, organised in powerful lobbies and served by undemocratic international institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organisation and the European Commission. Their interests are promoted to the detriment of the vast majority of the planet's inhabitants and of nature.
These interests and institutions are united around the "Washington Consensus", or neo-liberal agenda. They claim a smaller role for government and a larger one for the market, privatisation of public services and deregulation. They place "shareholder value" above all other values and demand freedom for investment, capital and goods and services [but not for people] to cross borders unhindered.
Abundant empirical proof exists attesting to these aims. I attach two of my own recent publications dealing with some of them in detail.
ONE SHOULD NOT CONFLATE THE CITIZENS MOVEMENT WITH RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS, FANATICS AND RACISTS: Citizens movement activists are shocked by attempts to place them in the same category as "extreme right-wingers" or "religious fanatics". Such rhetoric stems from a misunderstanding of our goals and is particularly dangerous in the wake of September 11th. We hope that in future needless provocation can be avoided in the interests of genuine dialogue.
VIOLENCE: You ask, too, if we share the views and values of the Black Bloc. We do not, but nor can we disregard the escalating violence of the State. Governments are now attacking European citizens with gas, horses, dogs and even live ammunition, causing one death and grievous injury to dozens if not hundreds, few of whom were violent. In Genoa, some people were even beaten in their sleeping bags when the police raided the school; others were tortured in prison. We have unimpeachable testimony attesting to inexcusable actions and we are deeply disturbed that none of the G-7 governments saw fit to protest the police violence ordered by Mr. Berlusconi. We also have proof that the masked ["Black"] participants in the demonstration were at least partially infiltrated by the police and by European Nazis who came to Genoa for their own purposes. Accredited journalists witnessed the destruction of property which went on for several hours while the police looked on without intervening. Your condemnation of "meaningless violence" would be more credible if it were more even-handed.
PRESERVING DIVERSITY: Your other, rather extreme example, "slow food", has nothing to do with fancy restaurants but with preserving agricultural and cultural diversity and the existence of small farmers worldwide. José Bové and his colleagues of the French Confédération Paysanne dismantled a McDonalds to protest the decision of the WTO authorising US sanctions against European products because of our refusal to import hormone-treated beef. Their livelihood is based on Roquefort, now taxed at 100% by the US, and their action also quite properly highlighted the issue of "mal-bouffe", or standardised food. When governments [or the EU] are unwilling or unable to protect their own citizens from decisions like that of the WTO, citizens must take up the challenge themselves. OUR MESSAGE: When you ask "What is your actual message?" we reply that corporate-led, market-driven globalisation cannot do anything other than what it has in fact done: enrich the already rich, deepen inequalities both within and between countries and foment crisis from Mexico to Asia to Russia, putting the livelihoods of millions in jeopardy.
Freedom for "Portfolio Equity Investment" to cross borders wreaks havoc. So does debt, on which many of us have campaigned for over a decade. Creditors are protected whereas debtors are not. Structural adjustment policies devised by the Bretton Woods Institutions have engendered misery for countless people in the South. UNICEF estimated more than a decade ago that debt was killing an additional half-million children annually. It still is. The G-7 falsely trumpets "debt cancellation"--yet the least developed countries continue to pay and for their people, nothing has changed.
We also campaign against money laundering and tax havens. George Bush himself now recognises that they facilitate terrorism, as well as trafficking in drugs, arms and prostitution. All the major Western banks use tax havens for their own legal, semi-legal or illegal activities without provoking the anger of the G-7, quite the contrary.
Our message is also a call for a worldwide Keynesian programme of taxation and redistribution, in order to promote sustainable development, repair the environment and reduce the obscene wealth gap between North and South. International taxes, like the Tobin Tax or taxes on transnational corporations could also contribute to such a goal. I shall elaborate on this point in my contribution to the seminar.
3. Genuine Disagreements
No one can be against "ethical" or in favour of "unethical" globalisation. Surely we all prefer good to evil. Moral standards are important but insufficient and ethical appeals to corporations, financial market operators and Northern or Southern elites to give up part of their profits and power in favour of the poor and to act in a socially and ecologically responsible way are meaningless without the means to enforce them. We need laws--and ultimately they will have to be binding, international laws.
Many people in the movement do, as you say, want to "relocalise" the economy and apply the principle of "subsidiarity" so that decisions are taken as close as possible to those who will be affected by them. Few would claim, however, that local-scale actions can provide more than partial solutions. We need to deal with globalisation as it is, which means we must democratise the international space.
Much of your argument hinges on the supposed benefits of "free trade" and the need to liberalise even further. You propose a "triangle" to support "ethical globalisation" in which "free trade" occupies a place as important as "knowledge" and "democracy". The citizens movement rejects such a concept. We believe that the present rules of the WTO are perverse, first of all for the South, but they also threaten public services in the North and the gains of social movements everywhere. Small farmers will disappear, sick people will not be cared for, the environment will suffer, culture will become homogenised in order to maximise corporate profits.
There is absolutely no empirical proof that "free trade" benefits everyone. Certain World Bank studies even show the opposite. In any case, over two-thirds of world trade is controlled by transnational corporations so they are likely to be the first beneficiaries. Other free trade agreements you mention, like NAFTA, bear this out: NAFTA even provides a mechanism for companies to sue governments directly with proven ill-effect on the environment and public health.
For all these reasons [and others left unstated here] we are firmly opposed to the launch of a new, expanded Round and to granting any further powers to the WTO which has far too many already. What is needed, rather, is a moratorium and a thorough review of the present rules and the impact they have already had and can be expected to have in future.
Susan George
Dear Prime Minister Verhofstadt,Thank you for your invitation to the meeting on 'threats and opportunities posed by globalisation'. Herewith we send you a brief reply, which we hope to be able to elaborate on at the meeting. While we disagree with much of your analysis of globalisation, we welcome your conclusion that a move towards a "global ethical approach" is needed. The core problem with the model of globalisation aggressively pursued by the European Union of the last decades is by and large centred around corporate interests. Not surprisingly, these policies have boosted the global market shares of EU-based corporations, but a very high price has been paid by the world's poorest, as well as workers and the environment. This is why any serious effort to address the global social and environmental crisis indeed must start "in our own European backyard." It is absolutely essential that the EU kick its disastrous habit of shaping international trade policies around the interests of large EU-based corporations. The European Commission has had a particularly problematic role in this respect, aligning itself with corporate lobbying structures to pursue, in the words of Commissioner Lamy, an "offensive trade agenda." In addition to the influence granted to powerful lobby groups such as the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), the EC has initiated and nurtured more institutionalised channels of corporate power, such as the European Services Forum (ESF), the Investment Network and the Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD).
A precondition for any serious move towards more democratic and ethical policy-making, should include a move to strip corporate-state alliances such as the Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) of their privileged powers. Through the TABD, EU and US-based corporations develop policy demands which the European Commission and the US government then make every effort to implement. A key aspect of the TABD's work is the attempt to shape EU-US consensus for the proposed new round of WTO negotiations. It is due to the incessant EU-US practice of designing trade policies and negotiating strategies around corporate priorities that large Northern corporations gain excessive influence over WTO negotiations.
On the bilateral level, the TABD produces deregulation hit-lists that include numerous democratically established environmental, health or safety regulations on both sides of the Atlantic. It is the deep commitment and active involvement of the US government and the European Commission in the TABD process that sets it apart from traditional lobby groups. The TABD is a little known, but disturbing example of the EU's democratic deficit. Civil society groups cannot even have access to basic documents which can help EU citizens determine the various factors influencing democratic decision-making in the EU. The European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, is currently investigating a complaint by our organisation into secrecy on the part of the European Commission for repeatedly refusing to grant us access to key documents from the EC to the TABD.
In the beginning of October, 20 European organisations and some MEPs raised these issues in an open letter to Trade Commissioner Lamy in which he was asked to reconsider the EC's participation in the planned annual conference of the TABD. In his reply, Lamy chose to hide behind the existence of other Transatlantic dialogues (labour and consumer), despite the fact that these have not been granted any role of importance in shaping EU-US trade and regulatory policies. Rolling back excessive corporate political power is an absolute pre-condition for moving from corporate-led globalisation to "ethical globalism." As the current president of the European Union, you have a marvellous opportunity to kick-start this long overdue democratisation process. You can concretely start with proposing that the European Commission de-link itself from the TABD and instructing your own staff to refuse the TABD the privileged political access that it has been granted in previous years, for instance in relation to the EU-US summits. We are looking forward to hear which concrete steps you will take in the coming weeks and months.
Yours sincerely,
Adam Ma'anit On behalf of Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)
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