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27 May, 2003
Meetings between leaders of countries are necessary and useful, if they do not aim at replacing international organisations that have been set up for global governance.
Once again it is time for the "Big" economic powers to meet and decide how to rule the entire world. The place for the event is Evian, France (just 30 kilometers outside Geneva).
This time, Bush, Koizumi, Chirac, Blair and the others have decided to spend one day to "consult" some of the other countries. That is why Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa and Switzerland have been invited.
To make the event look even more legitimate, the UN, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the WTO have also be included for the consultations. The ILO, the organisation with the best democratic structure, has not been invited, and we know from past experience that workers' rights don't interest the "Big".
The criteria used to select the countries and organisations to be in Evian are a secret and will probably remain so. Furthermore, the G-8 has no rules. It meets and decides the agenda without any kind of democratic process or transparency.
Undoubtedly, there are things absent from this meeting's agenda which should be discussed but within the framework of the UN and under the chairmanship of its secretary-general, such as:
- how to write off the well over US$2,000 billion external debt of developing countries;
- how to introduce a special tax on speculative financial transactions;
- how to create jobs for the more than 200 million jobless;
- how to reform international financial institutions and make them democratic and transparent.