MANIFESTO NFI 2007 MANIFESTO FOR A NEW EUROPE - ΜΑΝΙΦΕΣΤΟ ΓΙ | 页面 6

Manifesto for a New Europe
A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE –
COMMITTED TO SOCIAL JUSTICE, SOLIDARITY,
DEMOCRACY AND PEACE
Economic globalisation – for the eradica-
tion of poverty and underdevelopment
OUR GOAL
A sustainable Europe has to create a political framework for
economic globalisation designed to eradicate poverty and un-
derdevelopment and to redistribute wealth from rich to poor
countries.
WE KNOW
The fall of the iron curtain and the enlargement of the Europe-
an Union have accelerated processes of economic integration.
Since the 90s, foreign direct investment has massively increased.
From this global process Europe emerged as a winner and Africa
as a loser. Economically strong countries benefited the most
from booming world trade. Twenty-five states, above all the
USA and Germany, control 80% of world trade. In the course
of this development production has been relocated to countries
where taxes and labour costs are relatively low, such as Eastern
Europe and Asia. Products are channelled back to western con-
sumer societies by a rapid, low-cost transport system.
As a result of globalisation, economic processes are being
increasingly disembedded from their social contexts, in other
words economies are dominated by global players that are
not subject to national restrictions or regulations and thus un-
hampered in pursuing their business objective of profit max-
imisation. This is particularly obvious in the capital markets
where expected returns on investment determine monetary
transactions worldwide. Moreover, the profit potential of such
transactions is much higher than that of investments into the
‘real economy’.
Spearheaded by financial capital, globalisation has caused
capitalist ways of production and life to spread, and has be-
yond that ‘economised’ international relations in the interests of
powerful oligopolies. On the other hand, it has neither helped
to narrow the gap between the poor and the rich in western
societies nor has it accelerated the economic catch-up proc-
ess of the poorest countries. On the contrary: The income
gap in the OECD countries is widening. Poverty is spreading
in the western countries, while the number of the super-rich
has increased along with the globalisation of capital and capi-
tal markets. Between 1990 and 2000, the Human Develop-
ment Index has dropped in 21 developing countries, and the
gap between rich and poor countries, measured by the gross
domestic product, has widened. Official development assist-
ance has, to this day, been lagging far behind the targets set
by the UN in 1970. Despite debt write-off, the total indebt-
edness of developing countries continues to be crushing and
6 International Friends of Nature
the repayments from the poorest countries partly finance the
deficits of rich nations.
WE DEMAND
Economic globalisation is not a quasi-automatic process; it is
politically induced and thus controllable. Since the opening of
the eastern borders, European policies have mainly consisted
in giving free reign to market forces. Considering the effect of
market liberalisation, it is now imperative to curb the pursu-
ance of economic interests in favour of social justice, solidar-
ity and social integration. The dictates of the moment are to
re-embed economic processes into social contexts and to re-
establish the link between private-sector profitability and col-
lective (national as well as supranational) purposes. ‘The ulti-
mate aim of public policy is to make people happier.’ (Richard
Layard) Economic growth and the accumulation of capital are
deprived of any meaningful purpose, if they fail to contribute
to the common weal, in other words, if they neither counter-
act poverty nor improve the situation of the wage-dependent.
Policy-makers at both national and international level are thus
called upon to regulate these processes, not least with a view
to counteract the threatening disintegration of western socie-
ties and to even out the distribution differential between rich
and poor countries.
The driving force behind the ongoing capital accumulation
is financial capital flows, which elude political control. Moreo-
ver, the immense profits from speculative transactions lessen
the inclination to invest in the real economy. It is, therefore,
one of the dictates of the day to draw public benefit from the
free circulation of speculation capital, for example by taxing
international financial transactions – a proposal upheld by the
anti-globalisation network ATTAC for quite some time now. The
loan extension system subscribed to by the powerful interna-
tional finance institutions, such as the IMF, has to be modified
and uncoupled from the structural adjustment requirement,
which implies that developing countries open up their markets
to rich countries and multinational business groups. Moreover,
there is need for large-scale tax relief to be granted to the de-
veloping countries, which will enable them to set up sustain-
able national economies, not with the help of rigidly regulated
loans, but thanks to comprehensive debt relief. In this context
the countries in the northern hemisphere will be required to
give up their protectionism, especially vis-à-vis agricultural im-
ports from southern countries, which will make for more sym-
metry in world trade. Last but not least and with international
solidarity in mind, official development assistance needs to be
generously upgraded, so that it will at least reach the target
value of 0.7% set by the UN for the DAC (Development As-
sistance Committee) countries.