Parliamentarians call for curb on globalisation

by Gareth Harding

Brussels, 11 Oct (IPS) - Parliamentarians from the European Union and the 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have called for the brakes to be put on the headlong rush towards globalisation at their annual meeting in Brussels.

A draft resolution drawn up by Abednego Seisa Nqojane from Lesotho calls for a moratorium on all new World Trade Organisation talks until an in-depth reform of the rules of the trade club is carried out.

Before any further liberalisation is agreed, the impact of free trade on vulnerable groups needs to be assessed and means of ensuring greater openness and public participation must be agreed, says the text.

Not surprisingly, EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, rejected calls for a moratorium on new negotiations and staunchly defended the benefits the global economy can bring for developing nations. The French official said that the present trade system could “speed up development” if everyone accepted their fair share of responsibility.

Several members of the European Parliament (MEPs) also agreed with Lamy’s assessment. Italian Socialist, Renzo Imbeni, said there was “no alternative to globalisation,” while Dutch Liberal, Bob van der Bos, added that globalisation created opportunities as well as dangers. “The right position is not to stem globalisation but to help lesser-developed countries to compete in the computer revolution,” said the MEP.

However, the vast majority of delegates agreed with Nqojane’s analysis of the threat to developing countries posed by globalisation.

In his report, the deputy writes that “while it is true that globalisation opens up new possibilities that could help to improve many people’s living standards, it is also true that it makes life more difficult for those unable to cope with the changes”.

The least able to take advantage of the new horizons opened up by the global marketplace are the world’s poorest countries, argues Nqojane.

Unable to compete on a level playing field with multinational giants, companies in such states are too often forced to ratchet down labour or environmental standards. But even then, they cannot afford the investments needed to market a product globally, says the author of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly’s report.

In particular, Nqojane warns against the over-rapid integration of developing countries into the world economy. An immediate reduction in tariff quotas “would lead to massive disruption” in poor countries dependent on commodity exports, he writes.

Despite decades of economic growth and a mushrooming in trade and foreign investment, the “widening gap between the developed and developing countries has become today’s biggest problem,” says Nqojane. Quoting United Nations statistics, he notes that the ratio between the richest fifth of the world’s population and the poorest fifth has increased from 30 to one in 1960 to 74 to one in 1995.

The Assembly’s resolution, which is expected to be adopted on Thursday, calls for research to demonstrate the oft-touted linkage between trade liberalisation and poverty reduction and for an assessment of the impacts of the Uruguay Round (of multilateral trade negotiations) on sustainable development to be carried out.

At present, the “ultra liberalism enshrined in the WTO is undermining the opportunities for sustainable development,” says the draft resolution.

However, any solution to the South’s pressing environmental problems must be “on the basis of the recognition of the ecological debt of the north” and the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” it says.

More concretely, the resolution calls for a tax on international capital transfers - as proposed by Professor James Tobin - and the elimination of European and American subsidies on agricultural exports. UK Socialist MEP, Glenys Kinnock, said it was absurd that a maize farmer in the US got $20,000 a year in state subsidies while a similar farmer in poor countries only earned $200 per annum.

Other speakers were even more damning in their verdict on globalisation.

Pheko, coordinator of the gender and trade network in Africa, said that the “free market paradigm is anything but free” and that liberalisation has left Third World economies weaker, not stronger. “Globalisation is the new language of seduction in trade relationships,” she said, adding: “but the romance is similar to having a schizophrenic and depressive lover”.

Touted as the panacea to the problems of developing nations, liberalisation was, in fact, the source of many of the problems that hindered development. Pheko said it was nothing less than “economic terrorism” that in today’s global market goods had more rights than people.

Lamy pointed to several recent initiatives from the European Commission which disproved claims that the EU was protectionist and bent on free trade at all costs.

In particular, he drew attention to the recent “anything but arms” proposal which will grant tariff-free access to 99 percent of imports from the world’s 48 poorest countries. The trade supremo said the plan had sparked a “highly favourable reaction” from EU foreign affairs ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

Most parliamentarians added their support to the initiative, although several wondered about the knock-on effect on countries just outside the poorest-48 bracket.

Lamy also urged ACP states to set up regional free-trade blocs along the lines of the EU’s single market. “We are in a capitalist market now and the basic law is economies of scale,” said the Commissioner. Commerce amongst blocs of countries would allow developing countries to boost their competitiveness and increase their share of world trade, he said.