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Letter to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso

JamieSW — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:27:38 +0000

Your Excellency Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso,

On the occasion of the meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council on 16 June 2008, the under-signed human rights and humanitarian organizations would like to bring to your attention a number of concerns regarding Israel’s non-compliance with international human rights standards, international humanitarian law and therefore also the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

In its external actions, the EU must not breach the fundamental principles of the European Union, including human rights, as set out in the Treaty on European Union. The EU has committed itself to the highest possible respect for human rights, and concrete commitments in this area have been in a period of steady expansion for the past decade. Following the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Treaty on European Union was amended to include a new Article 6, setting out that the principles on which the Union is based include: “liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States”. On 25 June 2001, the European Council, in its conclusions on the European Union’s role in promoting human rights and democratisation in third countries stressed its strong commitment to “the mainstreaming of human rights and democratisation into EU policies and actions”. It further stated that “human rights and democratisation should systematically and at different levels be included in all EU political dialogues and bilateral relations with third countries”. Emphasising its commitment to human rights, the EU established a Fundamental Rights Agency in 2007.

We further note that Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement establishes that: “Relations between the parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on a respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.” In the Barcelona Declaration of 1995, the Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs undertook to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and guarantee the effective legitimate exercise of such rights and freedoms … without any discrimination on grounds of race, nationality, language, religion or sex.” Finally, the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice regarding Legal Consequences of Construction of a Wall in the occupied Palestinian territory establishes that all states and international actors are obliged not to recognise, aid or assist the illegal situation resulting from Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territory and all parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention are bound to ensure Israel’s compliance with this Convention. These obligations relate both to EU member states as signatories to the Geneva Conventions, and to EU institutions charged to ensure that EU-Israel contractual relations are undertaken in respect of Community and international law.

We believe in the human rights of all. In matters both related to its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel, Israel is currently not acting in conformity with international human rights law and, in relation to the occupied Palestinian territory, with international humanitarian law. Recent examples of such violations include:

The blockade on Gaza is leading to denial of economic, social and cultural rights for Gazans, in particular their human rights to food, water, sanitation and health, and which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as constituting collective punishment.
Palestinian citizens of Israel and the occupied territories continue to be denied equal access to services such as water, education, housing and land.
Israel continues to forcibly evict and displace Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including through the construction of the Separation Barrier, as well as in the Gaza ‘buffer zone’.

Israel continues to deny Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens, as well as spouses and family members from a number of other Arab states, from obtaining legal status in Israel.

The Annex to this letter lists reports on recent human rights violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by Israel.

Israel has failed to implement the observations of the UN human rights monitoring mechanisms, as well as human rights obligations established in the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice and several United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. Examples of these are contained in the Annex to this letter.

Israel faces real security threats and attacks that violate the human rights of its civilians. Its reactions to such threats and attacks must be proportionate and must not violate Israel’s obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The undersigned organisations call upon the EU to require that, within the framework of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, specific conditionalities are established to ensure that without delay, Israel:

1. Ends the blockade on the Gaza Strip which is undermining the economic, social and cultural rights of Gazans.
2. Complies with all UN resolutions, the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice and concluding observations of international human rights treaty bodies relating to the human rights of Palestinians, including the rights of Palestinian refugees.
3. Refrains from violations of the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories which necessitates a swift end to the occupation, a recognition of the right of Palestinians to self determination and the removal of the Separation Barrier from Palestinian land.
4. Ends discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, including in relation to access to land, housing and public services and enact a legally binding prohibition against discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religion.

We look forward to your response and an opportunity to meaningfully engage with you on these issues.

Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Switzerland
Cordaid, The Netherlands
Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI/PS)
DIAKONIA, Sweden
Al-Haq, occupied Palestinian territory,
ICCO, interchurch organisation for development co-operation, Netherlands
Aljamaheer Association for development in the Arab & Jewish sectors, Israel
Medical Aid for Palestinians, United Kingdom
medico international e.V., Germany
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights-Gaza
Palestinian hydrology group for water and environmental resources development
Physicians for Human Rights- Israel (PHR-IL)
The Swedish Organization for Individual Relief (SOIR)
Trócaire, Ireland

Israel has won the European cup: a special relationship

JamieSW — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:58:32 +0000

During her sixth visit to Israel since last November’s Annapolis summit, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained that the thousands of new housing units, built in Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land were damaging the peace talks with Palestinians. Meanwhile, at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Luxembourg, the same day, Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, announced that the EU had decided to upgrade its political and economic relations with Israel. Rupel, who chaired the EU-Israel Association Council meeting, the body overseeing the relationship, stated that the EU and Israel are “elevating” their relations to a new level of “more intense, more fruitful, more influential cooperation.” Israel has now been granted the highest level of relations available to a non-member state.

The cooperation is based on the European Neighborhood Policy Action Plan, an initiative launched under the Dutch EU Presidency in 2004, aimed at bringing the neighboring countries closer to the EU. This European move might seem surprising since a progress report on the implementation of the European Neighborhood Policy stated clearly that “little concrete progress” has been made on issues raised between Israel and the EU, such as restrictions on movement, the construction of the West Bank wall (its route ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice), administrative detentions, the dismantling of settler “outposts,” and the expansion of Israeli settlements.

Over the weekend, before the Monday announcement, the EU governments were still split between countries that wanted to link the upgrade to improvements in the moribund peace process or no link at all. A number of non-governmental organizations tried to press for linkages to Israel’s atrocious human rights record and the end to the siege of Gaza but Israeli diplomatic efforts and various national interests of member states proved to be stronger. A compromise was found in a softened link to progress in the peace process and the by now utopian two-state solution.

For years, Israel has ignored EU concerns about settlement construction on occupied territories, Israeli human rights violations, extrajudicial killings, house demolitions and other breaches of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and international law. As recently as January, top EU officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner called Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip “collective punishment,” defined as a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Conventions.

Tzipi Livni said that the talks were a milestone in EU-Israel relations, even though the agreement did not completely satisfy the original wishes of Israel, which also sought the introduction of regular summits with the EU and meetings with EU ministers. Yet the upgrade includes enhanced cooperation in political, economic, scientific, legal, cultural, educational and counter-terrorism matters and, according to Rupel, is based on “a mutual commitment to important common values.”

Rupel added that “There are obvious reasons for which strengthened political cooperation between the EU and Israel should be understood as a cooperation which contributes to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” He did not address why Israel should be rewarded with unconditional ties, despite its violations, while Palestinians under Israeli military occupation should be subjected to harsh EU sanctions and a boycott that has intensified the suffering of the civilian population. Livni stated that “it is clear that Israel and Europe share the same values and the same interests.”

Until now, under the EU’s Neighborhood Policy Israel was the only country without a subcommittee on human rights.

Israel’s diplomatic relations with most European states and EU institutions have improved significantly in recent years. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany have been the closest allies of Israel within the EU. Even before she became Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel told the Israeli daily Haaretz that “it is of the utmost importance that we preserve the vitality of relations and avoid turning them into something that is only formal and ceremonial.”

On 19 May, at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen told Israel supporters at a symposium that he pressed the EU to intensify its relations with Israel and made good by inviting several Israeli government officials to The Hague. Earlier this year he told participants of the Herzilya conference in Israel that Israel’s association with the European internal market could be deepened, as well as “its involvement in various European agencies, programs and working groups.”

At that time, he said that “part and parcel of this process would be strengthening the human rights dialogue between Israel and the EU” but those familiar with past human rights dialogues in the context of the EU-Israel Association Agreement know that these are empty words as the Luxembourg announcement clearly demonstrates.

He also said that “halting the expansion of settlements and dismantling outposts would make a great difference in this respect” but the ongoing expansion of construction activities in a hundred settler colonies at this moment suggests that it didn’t make any difference.

With East European newcomers, the EU has now a bigger share of friends of Israel. Notably the Czech Republic and Poland opposed any linking of the upgrade of relations with Israel to its behavior. With the return of right-wing governments in France and Italy, EU policy has tilted more towards the line of the Bush Administration. As France, led by President Nicolas Sarkozy, takes over the EU presidency on 1 July, it is expected that the tilt towards Israel will continue.

Another Treaty That Won't Lie Down

Ellie Keen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:37:53 +0000

The Irish government, obliged by its own national constitution to put the question of the Lisbon Treaty to the vote, will win little sympathy from its ‘partners’ in the European Union.

Those national leaders who did not dare to put the matter to the vote, and those who were bullied out of doing so by more powerful actors in the EU drama – the Commission and the big member states – will breathe a sigh of relief that they cannot be blamed for this farce.

When EU leaders gather for their regular summit meeting in Brussels at the end of this week, the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is going to have some explaining to do.

The instructions from Brussels were quite clear.

A second round of ‘No’ votes must be avoided at all costs.

You might compare the Taoiseach’s position to that of a minor gang leader required to explain to a mafia boss why takings are down from his protection rackets.

He can whinge all he likes about constitutional obligations, but having caused this mess he will be expected to offer a feasible way out of the brown stuff into which the leaders gathered in Brussels find themselves sinking.

Of course, there is only one honest, democratic way out, and that is to abandon the whole project.

The constitutional position is quite clear.

The Lisbon Treaty, like the virtually identical Constitutional Treaty before it, is dead.

And yet what is almost certain to happen is that a set of clearly rejected constitutional arrangements will be imposed on the peoples of 27 countries.

Three countries which held popular votes have actually rejected one or the other version.

Only Spain and Luxembourg held referenda which resulted in approval, but what matters here is not the three-two scoreline.

The rules in the case of both the Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty were simple.

If one country rejected either, it fell.

Modern European politics is, however, a game which can be halted at any time by one team, the ruling elite, which can then proceed to change the rules.

It also gets to appoint the referee.

People voted against these treaties for a variety of reasons.

If Lisbon is imposed, small countries will lose power.

National institutions under democratic control, or at least influence, will see their powers transferred to unelected and unanswerable bodies.

National vetoes will disappear across a range of policy areas, so that ever more laws can be imposed which have the assent of neither the government nor the parliament of the member state involved.

A European army will be born.

And neoliberal economic policies which are good for no-one but multinational corporations and international criminals will be reinforced.

The Irish in particular could see much to alarm them in a treaty which would jeopardise their military neutrality, undermine their agriculture and allow unprecedented interference in their system of taxation, until recently an unquestioned national preserve.

Their reasons for voting ‘no’ are, however, their own affair.

As in other contexts, no means no, whatever motives may lie behind it.

Yet the Taoiseach has said only that there is no “quick fix”.

He has also said that Ireland will do its best not to halt what he describes as “the ambitious project of EU reform”.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, meanwhile, has joined the leaders of many EU member states in refusing to declare the treaty dead.

The British government has said that the ratification process will continue.

So, you can vote Yes, you can vote No, but the process is more akin to a multiple choice test than an election, and don’t worry, if you don’t get the answer right the first time, you’ll likely be given a second chance.

Similarly, depending on where you live you can vote social democrat, Labour, Christian Democrat, Liberal, Communist or for the Man in the Moon, but don’t expect it to make any serious difference to the way in which your country is governed, the decisions your government takes, or life in general.

There are now only two sets of interests which really matter: those of multinational corporations and those, sometimes still slightly different, of the governments and political parties which now exist primarily to serve their interests.

This includes not just conservatives but Europe’s social democratic and labour parties, most Green parties – our own being an honourable exception – and the whole ragbag of centre-left, centrist and right wing groups which are increasingly indistinguishable at the level of policy.

So, viciously anti-trade union labour rulings by the European Court of Justice go unchallenged by parties which were created by those same trade unions.

And the EU’s ‘flexicurity’ proposals, which translate as flexibility for us, and security for them, are enthusiastically supported by parties built by working people to defend their interests

The European Union, which likes to present its opponents as narrow nationalists and backward-looking xenophobes, is dragging us back to a time before working people could demand, if nothing else, that they be treated with respect, paid a living wage, and allowed to organise in pursuit of their legitimate demands.

By imposing neoliberal economics on twenty-seven member states, the EU is making real international cooperation, of the kind needed to confront the crises facing us in a world increasingly spinning out of control, impossible.

The Irish people, like those of France and the Netherlands before them, have had the courage and good sense to vote to reject the heinous Lisbon Treaty and thereby give us a further chance to confront those who would deprive us of our rights and of our livelihoods.

This time we must seize it with both hands.

Neoliberal Offensive

Ellie Keen — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

European TUC general secretary John Monks urges “European legislators,” in light of the most recent outrageous ruling by the European Court of Justice, to revise the posting of workers directive to clarify and safeguard its original meaning.

If he is referring to the European Parliament, then he is barking up the wrong tree.

Legislators are representatives who initiate laws and the European Parliament does not have this power.

Its role is to revise draft legislation proposed by the unelected and unaccountable EU commission and, once a directive is finalised and issued by the commission, it is up to the European Court of Justice to rule on disputes arising from its operation.

Unlike any other court, the European Court of Justice has a mandate to remove obstacles to the operation of a free market within the EU and to promote ever-closer union within the bloc.

And it has been single-minded in doing so in its judgements handed down in response to employers’ demands to prioritise their right to make profits over trade unionists’ right to defend their living standards.

The latest scandalous rejection of workers’ rights is in response to a complaint by the EU commission against Luxembourg for insisting that national legislation on maximum and minimum working periods, minimum paid holidays, minimum rates of pay, health and safety, non-discrimination and so on should apply to posted workers is unreasonable and an additional burden on foreign service providers.

The Luxembourg case follows hot on the heels of the Laval, Viking and Rüffert cases, which undermined individual states’ protective legislation in the name of free provision of cross-border services.

The Laval case involved a Latvian construction company working on a school in the Swedish town of Vaxholm, which refused to sign a collective agreement and provoked trade union action to isolate the site.

The European Court of Justice ruled that, important though the right to take industrial action is, it is trumped by the right to trade freely.

The Rüffert case involved a Polish firm winning a contract in Germany and refusing to comply with wage rates agreed between the Lower Saxony government and the German building workers’ union.

The European Court of Justice ruling was that freedom to trade took precedence over collectively agreements.

The Viking case was about the owners of Finnish-flagged ferry Rosella deciding to register it in Estonia, thereby annulling the collective agreement with the Finnish seafarers’ union.

Once again, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of the employer.

Even to those slow on the uptake, it must dawn that there is a pattern developing here and it is a pattern that points to a race to the bottom – acceptance of the worst pay and conditions as the norm across the EU.

This fits in with the neoliberal policies adopted across the continent and backed by all governments, whether nominally conservative or social-democratic.

It dovetails completely with the attacks on the welfare state, pensions provisions, the 35-hour week and other progressive conditions.

Overturning this employer offensive will not be won through EU institutions but by campaigns in all member states demanding non-implementation of these vicious anti-working class rulings.

Referenda: Democracy vs Elites

William Benzies — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:04:20 +0000

In his article in openDemocracy following the vote in the Republic of Ireland on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, George Schöpflin makes a confusing case against the use of referendums (see “The referendum: populism vs democracy”, 16 January 2008).
He says that those who support referenda have fallen victim to the “seduction of direct democracy”. There is no such thing as “the people”; it’s not democracy but populism, which in turn leads to the tyranny of the majority. Worse, it’s power without responsibility and the focus on a single issue leads to unholy alliances. The basic problem is the failure to hold national elites to account because the connection with European Union institutions is weak.

Let’s turn this on its head. Would George Schöpflin have made the same case if there had been twenty-seven referenda and in each and every single country the vote had been an overwhelming “yes”?

I doubt it. I think he would have been much more likely to have penned a glowing piece praising the virtues of participatory democracy. The people of Europe had spoken; some in defiance of their purportedly Eurosceptic governments. I hazard a guess that he even would have urged national governments to take head and listen to their people – who had so clearly expressed their collective will.

We are writing articles about the EU and the use of referenda because when given the chance to have a say, three out of four broadly pro-European countries (France, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Ireland) came up with a largely unexpected “no”.

This came as a shock and governments which had originally promised one didn’t dare to ask to their people. In the United Kingdom all three political parties entered the 2005 general election with a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum. They all in different forms got cold feet and reneged.

So let’s look at George Schöpflin’s argument again. He’s right to say that not all things lend themselves to being decided by a referendum.

But it is not the complexity of the question which matters, but whether it is about conferring power; power which emanates from the people.

General-election manifestos are complex documents. Few have read them, even fewer have understood them – but when it comes to the general election people decide which package they prefer. The voters don’t say “yes” or “no” but tick a box labelled Labour, Conservative or LibDem.

I am puzzled by Schöpflin’s denouncement of “ad hoc coalitions”. Some may call this “tactical voting”. In the 1997 general election there was many a constituency where LibDem supporters voted Labour or vice-versa because it was the best way of getting the Conservatives out. I can’t see much wrong with that.

More worrying is the line that referenda are bad because they introduce new political actors. I’d say “hallelujah” to that. Anything that stops political elites from becoming complacent seems a good thing to me.

After the demos

So let’s try again.

There is a case for direct democracy when the people decide who should govern. When the government passes power onto a third party, then the people have a right to express their consent or otherwise.

As the great constitutionalist AV Dicey put it: “the referendum is the people’s veto; the nation is sovereign and may well decree that the constitution shall not be changed without the direct sanction of the nation.”

George Schöpflin is right when he says the European demos is weak. I would go further and say it does not exist. But the national demos – “we the British”, the Germans, the French or the Hungarians – is strong. To argue that “the people” is an antediluvian concept and we have progressed to some higher plane, may sound trendy and modern. But in my constituency in Birmingham they know who “we the people” are. Maybe it’s clearer to call them “the taxpayers”.

Schöpflin assumes that European Union integration operates within three different sectors – the EU and its institutions, the national elites and the supposed European demos.

I’d argue that the appetite for European integration is waning; there is no discernible European demos and the real problem is that the European elites in particular and the national elites to a lesser extent seem to be unable to comprehend or understand this.

So stop condemning referenda just because we don’t like the answers they produce and begin a proper debate about what kind of allocation of powers and responsibilities “the people” across Europe would be willing to support.

42 days? Try 18 months

Ellie Keen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:57:10 +0000

Until the end of the second world war Europe was a continent of emigrants. Millions left for the Americas: some to colonise, others to escape hunger, financial crises, persecution, ethnic cleansing, war or totalitarian governments.

European citizens arrived in Latin and North America en masse, without visas or conditions imposed on them by the authorities. They were simply welcomed, and continue to be in Latin America. They came to exploit the natural wealth and to transfer it to Europe, with a high cost for the native population. Yet the people, property and rights of the migrants were always respected.

Contrast the European “return directive”, to be voted on in the European parliament this week. It imposes harsh terms for detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, regardless of the time they have spent in European countries, their work situation, their family ties or their achievements in integrating themselves into local society.

The EU is now the main destination for migrants around the world, because of its positive image of space, prosperity and public freedom. The great majority of migrants contribute to, rather than exploit, this prosperity.

They are employed in public works, construction, cleaning, hospitals and domestic work. They take the jobs the Europeans cannot or will not do. Maintaining the relationship between the employed and the retired by providing generous income to the social security system, the migrant offers a solution to demographic and financial problems in the EU.

For us, our emigrants represent help in development that Europeans do not give us (few countries reach the minimum objective of 0.7% of GDP in development assistance). Latin America received, in 2006, a total of $68bn sent back from abroad, more than the total foreign investment in our countries. My country, Bolivia, received more than 10% of its GDP in such remittances.

Unfortunately, the return directive is a huge infringement of the human rights of our Latin American friends. It proposes jailing undocumented immigrants for up to 18 months before their expulsion. Mothers with children could be arrested, without regard to family and school, and put in detention centres, where we know depression, hunger strikes and suicides happen. How can we accept it?

At the same time, the EU is trying to convince the Andean Community of Nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) to sign an “association agreement” that includes a free trade agreement of a similar nature to that imposed by the US. We are under intense pressure to accept demands for liberalisation of our trade, financial services, intellectual property rights and public works. Under so-called “judicial protection” we are being pressured to denationalise water, gas and telecommunications. Where is the “judicial protection” for our people seeking new horizons in Europe?

If the return directive becomes law, we will not be morally able to deepen negotiations with the EU, and we reserve the right to legislate so European citizens have the same obligations for visas that Europe imposes on the Bolivians, according to the diplomatic principle of reciprocity.

The social cohesion problems that Europe is suffering now are not the fault of migrants, but the result of the model of development imposed by the north, which destroys the planet and dismembers human societies. I appeal to European leaders to drop this directive and instead form a migration policy that respects human rights, and allows us to maintain the movement of people that helps both continents.

Evo Morales Ayma is the president of the Republic of Bolivia presidencia.gov.bo

For more information on the Returns Directive, see No Fortress Europe‘s site – and sign the petition!

Ireland Shows the Way

Ellie Keen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:42:52 +0000

Dublin

In the midst of a growing economic crisis, Ireland’s urban working class and struggling rural people have united to deliver a blow to Europe’s ruling elite.

The defeat of the Lisbon Treaty in yesterday’s Irish referendum has tossed out years of efforts by the European Union to come up with new, “streamlined” procedures, and to get the increasingly unitary EU an (unelected) president and foreign minister.

The Treaty was itself a modest rewrite of the European Constitution, rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

As the counts came in from around the country today, the Irish people’s decision was, in the end, not even close. The momentum for a No vote displayed in last week’s opinion polls continued right through polling day. With a turnout bigger than in any previous Irish Euro-referendum, the electorate smashed expectations that a big vote would boost the Yes side and defied the advice of 95% of the country’s elected politicians, who supported the Treaty.

The politically disparate No campaign had rained blows from left and right, defending workers’ rights and defending low corporation tax, against privatization and against abortion; the Yes side could scarcely defend itself, let alone fight back.

Former Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte today compared the plight of the Yes campaigner to playing a video game: “You pop the bad guy, two more pop up.”

The various No elements avoided arguing among themselves during the campaign, but the battle to claim the victory has now begun. All analysts agree, however, that as in the 2001 Nice Treaty referendum, Irish people’s concern about military neutrality and the growing militarization of the EU was crucial.

Many of the issues and energies in the Lisbon campaign have been addressed already in CounterPunch. The X factor in this result was the effect of the prevailing economic catastrophism: would voters take the conservative option of voting Yes to avoid the danger of deepening the crisis with political uncertainty? In the end it was the most at-risk sections of the population who delivered the most decisive No.

The problem for the Treaty was that it was all too easy for voters to connect Ireland’s present economic woes to its role in Europe. As unemployment leaps, it calls attention to all the east-European immigrants working here; as previously astronomic house prices collapse, the president of the European Central Bank announces a coming rise in interest rates; as farmers worry about their futures, the EU negotiates at the WTO to allow more South American beef into European markets; as fishermen despairing of high fuel prices stage protest blockades at key ports, they complain about EU-imposed fishing quotas that force them to dump tons of their catches.

A No vote does nothing to address any of these issues; indeed few of them even figured prominently in the campaign. But voting No was the means at hand to complain about them.

Much of the media credit for the No win is being given to conservative businessman Declan Ganley and his new Libertas organization, with its respectably neoliberal campaign focusing on taxation and voting weights in EU institutions. But the results so far indicate that better-off Irish voters, from the fat farming regions of the south midlands and the prosperous suburbs of south Dublin, stuck with their traditional Europhilia. The Yes side won solid victories in well-off areas and a near-draw in prosperous rural regions. The No victory came with unprecedented turnouts in poorer areas of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and other cities, and with large No margins in more marginal rural areas in the west of the island and around the Border with Northern Ireland. Fishing communities delivered an overwhelming No. Former prime minister Garret FitzGerald has described the result as the most class-divided in Irish history.

There is, without doubt, some space for the Left in Ireland and across Europe to exploit this huge victory in a tiny country against the European Union’s neoliberal elite, especially if EU leaders try to drive through yet another version of Lisbon. But the reasons that an uneasy Ireland voted No are not simple, and the complex and contradictory story here gives that elite the chance to shrug off the result and just live with the institutional status quo ante.

Is Europe a regulatory threat to business? A military threat to peace? A liberal threat to traditional morality? A driver of climate-change enlightenment? A hungry vulture in third-world markets? A counterweight to US power? Take your pick: unlike the US, the definition of institutional Europe is up for grabs, internally and globally.

I was speaking last night to a prominent left-wing politician and No campaigner. He spoke of hearing a No voter give her reasons: “If the Lisbon Treaty goes through, Europe will bring in abortion, gay marriage, legal prostitution, euthanasia…” The campaigner was glad to have another No vote, but conceded: “If I believed that myself, I would have voted Yes.”

Harry Browne lectures in Dublin Institute of Technology. His book, ‘Hammered by the Irish: How the Pitstop Ploughshares disabled a US war-plane – with Ireland’s blessing’, is forthcoming from Counterpunch Books. He can be reached at: harry.browne@gmail.com

Lisbon Treaty — dumping social Europe

Ellie Keen — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:43:34 +0000

The Irish referendum on the European Union Lisbon Treaty will take place on June 12. The Dublin government, media and all the major political parties, with the exception of Sinn Fein, are calling for a “Yes” vote for “jobs, the economy and Ireland’s future in Europe”.

The Lisbon Treaty is virtually identical to the proposed EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, containing 96% of its articles. The treaty, if ratified, would consolidate and centralise the power of unelected EU institutions, further the militarisation of Europe in the framework of the NATO alliance and open the way for the accelerated privatisation of Europe’s public services.

The process of the drafting and ratification of the renamed constitution demonstrates its thoroughly undemocratic nature. The 500 million citizens of the EU have been excluded from having input into the content of the constitution, as well as being denied their right to approve or reject it through referenda.

Treaty’s fate in Irish hands

The southern Irish state is constitutionally bound to hold a referendum on the treaty — so those Irish people living in the 26 counties making up the Republic of Ireland are now in the ridiculous situation of having their vote count for all the people of Europe.

The treaty must be endorsed unanimously by all member states in order to come into effect in 2009. The EU’s other 26 member states plan to ratify the treaty by votes in their respective national parliaments.

On May 21, the executive council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which represents more than 600,000 workers, voted to support the campaign for a “Yes” vote, claiming that the treaty will be a step forward for workers’ rights as the “Charter of Fundamental Rights” seemingly enshrines the right to strike.

However, some of the individual unions affiliated to the ICTU are calling for a “No” vote, including Unite, one of the ICTU’s largest affiliates. The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union is recommending its 45,000 members vote no, and the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union — representing more than 200,000 workers — has yet to make a decision.

It is unclear which way the vote will go, as a recent poll found only 6% of respondents indicated they understood what the referendum was about, with 30% “vaguely aware” of its contents. Around 35% say will vote “Yes”, 18% “No” with 47% undecided.

The claim that the treaty provides new protection for workers’ rights is false. While article 28 states that workers may “take collective action to defend their interests, including strike action”, it immediately qualifies this “fundamental right” by explaining that “the limits for the exercise of collective action, including strike action, come under national laws and practices”.

The British Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution pamphlet, The Big EU Con Trick, quotes a British foreign office spokesperson as saying explicitly: “The Charter doesn’t create any new rights. We spent a very long time looking at this, in particular the disputed article. It does not create the right to strike.”

Lisbon pits the “fundamental right” of workers to take collective action against the apparently more fundamental right of capital to unrestricted movement, unbound by national industrial laws and agreements.

Race to the bottom

Conflicts between employers and workers will be ruled on by a strengthened European Court of Justice. The European Trade Union Confederation has described several recent ECJ rulings as an “open invitation to social dumping”, launching a race to the bottom for workers’ wages, conditions and rights.

Some of the recent ECJ rulings on disputes include the case of the German company Objekt und Bauregie, which employed a Polish subcontractor to employ Polish building workers posted to Germany, on less than half the minimum wage agreed by German trade unions and employer associations.

On April 3, the ECJ ruled that O&B should not be bound by the local law that states public building contractors must abide by the existing collective agreements. The court found that while member states may impose minimum pay on foreign companies posting workers in their state, the Lower Saxony law restricted the “freedom to provide services”.

In essence, this ruling outlaws a minimum wage and base conditions being included in public tender contracts.

In 2004, Latvian firm Laval posted Latvian construction workers to Sweden and refused to acknowledge the existing collective agreement with the Swedish Building Workers’ Union. Laval claimed that it was not obliged to pay the rates collectively agreed on in the building sector.

The union took collective action and Laval claimed to the ECJ that it was being discriminated against on the grounds of nationality, with the Swedish union infringing upon its right to provide services. The court found that while “service providers” from another EU state are obliged to abide by the host agreement, collective action must be “proportional”.

This means that the ECJ believes workers have the right to take industrial action only when the minimum wage or conditions of the host country, or the minimum working conditions set out in the EU’s Posting of Workers Directive, are being breached by the employer.

In order to cut costs, the Finnish shipping company, Viking Line, attempted to re-flag its ships as Estonian and operate out of Estonia. When two Finnish maritime unions organised a blockade of Viking Line, it took its case to the ECJ.

Again, the claim was that the company’s right to freedom of movement was being restricted by the industrial action of the workers. And again, in December, the court ruled that the unions had restricted Viking Line’s right of establishment.

‘Rights’ of capital

Three things are clear from these cases and from the text of the Lisbon Treaty. Firstly, the universal right to take collective industrial action is not guaranteed as it is subject to member states’ national laws.

Secondly, the right to take collective action to prevent the exploitation of posted workers by foreign service-providers is subject to the company’s right to freedom of movement and establishment under the EU Services Directive — a right that the ECJ has consistently upheld as being superior to workers’ rights.

Thirdly, the collective action of workers and unions taken against foreign service-providers is only deemed legitimate if it is in defence of the most basic minimum conditions agreed on by EU bodies or set in law by the host country. What happens if workers want to take collective action in order to improve their conditions?

These ECJ rulings, combined with the provisions for privatisation and the removal of “distortions” from the market contained in Lisbon, are a recipe for the “equalisation” downwards of the conditions for working people of Europe — while the corporations that played a key role in drafting the treaty increase their profit-making capacity.

The result will be the growing severe exploitation of eastern European workers, increased job displacement, de-unionisation and falling conditions in the West — with public services fought for and won through generations of struggle being put up for sale across the continent. It’s in the interests of all the working people of Europe for the “No” vote to win in the Irish referendum.

Irish Euro Vote Comes Down to the Wire

Ellie Keen — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:55:10 +0000

Dublin

The more the Irish people know about the Lisbon Treaty, the less they like it. That’s the message of the opinion polls as we draw close to Ireland’s June 12th referendum, which is decisive for the future of European Union institutions.

It’s going to be close. The media panic about the possibility of a No vote on Thursday hasn’t dwelled on such details as polling-margin-of-error and the huge body of undecided voters. But there’s no doubt that the momentum toward the No side has been real, and Ireland could well force the EU governments back to the old drawing board—for a second time, after the rejections of the similar EU Constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

The main problem faced by a virtually complete assortment of the Irish and EU powers-that-be is that there is no obvious positive reason to vote Yes. “To Make EU Institutions Function More Efficiently” is not a slogan to stir the blood, especially when folks suspect those institutions are up to no good to begin with.

What’s more, the ‘reforms’ envisioned by Lisbon—e.g. more majority voting instead of unanimity, fewer commissioners—were allegedly required after the expansion of the European Union to 25 countries in 2004 (it’s now 27). But no one has noticed Brussels and Strasbourg seizing up with legislative gridlock under the current arrangements—and again, most people think they wouldn’t much mind if they did.

The underlying issues, and the reason that Ireland alone is holding a referendum on this treaty, have been dealt with previously in CounterPunch. What is notable as the voting approaches— it has actually started already on a few offshore islands—is that the Yes side has moved its argument forward from “come on, we like Europe” to “we’ll make a terrible mess if we vote No and this is no time to be getting Europe annoyed”. Ireland’s always fragile self-esteem has already taken a blow over the last year or two as the Celtic Tiger limps off the scene; and new Taoiseach (prime minister) Brian Cowen seems to be shouting breathlessly every time he comes on TV, all about the trouble we’ll be in if No emerges victorious.

That shouting could yet work: if I were a betting man I’d stick a few euro on a narrow Yes victory. The main farmers’ lobby has joined the Yes side, after strong-arming the government into a commitment to veto any WTO agreement that isn’t favorable. Moreoever, the prime opinion-forming media outlets are amplifying the elite’s panic. (A couple of British-owned papers backing the No side have kept the press wars interesting, if not honest or well balanced.) Ad hominem attacks on the No side have been stepped up.

But the No side, which ranges right across the political spectrum, has kept throwing up objections to the Treaty and stayed on the offensive. Some of the objections are dubious—abortion will not be brought into Ireland thanks to Lisbon, however much this prospect seems to have engaged and enraged some conservative voters. And the fuss about keeping ‘our’ commissioner at the EU table and ensuring Ireland can continue to have the EU’s lowest corporation tax is neither very progressive nor based on a sound reading of how most Irish people’s interests have been served historically.

Sinn Fein, which had a terrible election last year, has virtually led the No campaign and deftly plucked arguments from left and right alike. But it would be fair to say that it has kept its emphasis to the left, and the party has helped to boost the left’s No voices, raising objections relating to workers’ rights, the possible privatization of public services and the militarization of the EU. It has made for an interesting month of debate: it’s rare, for instance, to hear so many, and contending, trade-union voices in the media.

And the popular energy is on the No side. While establishment politicians use the referendum campaign, and the accompanying relaxation of the litter laws, to stick up photos of themselves on lampposts across the State, sometimes beside the tiniest of “Yes” pleas, a motley assortment of No campaigners has plastered the island with slogans.

That energy, and a decision by the electorate that the burden of proof should be on those who wish us to change existing political arrangements and power structures, could yet yield a No victory when votes are counted on Friday. Whoever wins, the arguments about who wields power in Europe and to what purpose have only just begun.

<>Harry Browne lectures in Dublin Institute of Technology. His book, ‘Hammered by the Irish: How the Pitstop Ploughshares disabled a US war-plane – with Ireland’s blessing’, is forthcoming from Counterpunch Books. He can be reached at: harry.browne@gmail.com

Yes, we can

Ellie Keen — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

At a time when supposed “progress’ is controlled by transnational corporations, the struggle for human emancipation requires perseverance and transnational political organization to be able to control the corporations that seek to control us.

Progress is an idea invented in the 18th century, the age of the Enlightenment and of revolutions but it sometimes hard to keep the idea alive in our own time. In France, the revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy and the “natural order”—the ultimate heresy at the time. The Founding Fathers of the United States, imbued with the notion of progress, bequeathed it to generations of Americans. When it first flowered, the idea of progress was confined to the West, to what we might call the “Enlightenment Zones”; and to the relatively educated classes. Through following decades, thinkers and activists believed in human emancipation and fought for it—for the eradication of slavery, a new life for immigrants, the rights of workers, of women and minorities.

In those early days, science and technology seemed to be developing with such speed and assurance, solving so many problems and making life so much easier for millions that it was easy to believe—in 19th century Britain for example—that mankind was on the high road towards an ever-brighter horizon.

The notion of “development” embodied the 20th century version of progress. At least until the appearance of the UN’s Human Development Reports in the mid-1990s, the official “developers” like the World Bank confused economic growth with human well-being and, pushing vast programmes like the “Green Revolution”, counted on science and technology to eradicate poverty and inequality. China is still following a similar 19th century path, displaying unrivalled faith in technological progress while showing little interest in human liberation or ecological limits.

Two world wars, the Shoah, the gradually revealed horrors of colonialism, the nuclear arms race and civilian nuclear disasters all contributed in the 20th century to eroding faith in progress. Climate change, proliferating financial crises, the “oil shock”, the threat of massive famine and terrorism are playing the same role in the 21st.We seem finally to be getting it through our heads that civilisation can very well go backwards and that at this very moment we are almost certainly pushing it in that direction.

Historically speaking, only the left, only the progressive forces have ever brought about progress in the sense of human emancipation. So the question that TEMAS is asking its authors — “What would be a new idea of progress for the left in the 21st century?” is an urgent one.

Let me try to answer it first by pointing out the distinction one must make between scientific and technological advances and human progress. The two used to go hand in hand; today, however, the debate, indeed the fight concerns whether scientific developments actually constitute progress or not. Now the left must often try stop what the right labels “progress”, an inconceivable role for progressives a hundred years ago. In our day, when supposed “progress” is controlled by transnational corporations focused solely on profit and opening new markets, this is a progressive duty.

The example of Genetically Manipulated Organisms illustrates this point. Although no one has yet conclusively proved that GMOs are dangerous to human health, their harmful impact on the environment and their capacity to spread and destroy the freedom of farmers to grow organic or traditional crops is manifest. Knowing that transnational corporations control GMOs, particularly Monsanto with its heavy legacy of harmful products progressives are right to prevent the cultivation of GMOs except under strictly contained conditions.

We do not need more nuclear power but rather, as in Spain, much more investment in wind power and other alternative energies. Nor do we need new warplanes, however much these may earn for the military-industrial complex, but rather research and development of light-weight materials for building commercial aircraft in order to reduce drastically the amount of fuel they consume. As the philosopher Paul Virilio has pointed out, every technology comes with its own specific accident: the plane crash, the computer black-out with catastrophic information loss; the nuclear meltdown, various plagues due to unplanned release of manufactured organisms in nature, the oil spill or the chemical explosion—the list is long. The duty of progressives is to apply rigorously the precautionary principle and attempt to control the corporations that seek to control us. It requires perseverance and transnational political organisation to match the strategies of the corporations themselves.

The question of progress towards human emancipation is different. Here the left is obviously not called upon to prevent, but to seek and find new paths—just as all progressives who have ever lived have tried to do. All of them had to struggle against the myriad forms of oppression in the difficult circumstances of their own times, and most of them, let’s face it, lost. Spartacus did not bring about an end to slavery in ancient Rome, nor did slavery end until the 19th century. Hundreds of philosophers, proto-scientists, thinkers and innocent people were burnt at the stake before the power of the Church could be blocked. For centuries, Europe fought bloody wars resulting in untold numbers of needless deaths until a united Europe brought them to an end. Women were not recognised as fully human until less than a hundred years ago and are still trying to gain genuine equality, even in “advanced” societies. Human rights are still ignored in most places, including the west, so we do not lack for targets and 21st century “construction-sites”.

The unprecedented challenge facing progressives now is to be active on all geographical fronts. Until recently, it was quite enough to try to deal with the problems of one’s own country—decent wages, improved working conditions, proper health care, universal education, separation of Church and State and so on. Needless to say, national issues are still important. So are local ones. More and more, however, we can see that the boundaries of our lives reach well beyond our national frontiers. Europeans today must face the fact that 85 percent of the legislation governing them will come not from their national parliament but from Brussels and the EU is in the grip of the neo-liberal, business-driven economic model to the exclusion of any consideration of social progress.

The European Court of Justice has recently handed down no less than three decisions obliging Sweden, Finland and Germany to accept workforces from Eastern Europe paid up to 50 percent below the agreed wage for their own workers. These decisions are based on the “freedom to provide services”. They deliberately place European workers in direct competition with each other and organise the “race to the bottom” for wages and working conditions. In the Lisbon Treaty, the word “market” appears 63 times, “competition” 25 times, “social progress” gets three mentions and unemployment none. The Commission insists that there be no restrictions on the free movement of goods, services people and capital. How can we hope to tax international capital movements—as Attac has been proposing for years—if no “restrictions” are allowed and it is the unelected Commission or the Court that decides? Centuries of European progress can be rescinded and blotted out unless progressives can get this neo-liberal Europe under control; a task we must accomplish through trans-border organisation to match that of the European elites who are extremely well-served by present arrangements.

Internationally speaking, it is a painfully slow process to place vital subjects on the agenda, much less to get them acted upon. It took over twenty years to convince national and international decision-makers of the reality and the danger of climate change, so eager were they to listen to the corporations, especially the oil companies. Now that everyone is conscious of the threats, the leadership is once more paralysed. We know that climate refugees will be hammering on our doors in a matter of years—yet no preparations are made. We know that famine is once more stalking the world, that tens of millions of people who had emerged from lives of chronic hunger are being plunged once more into that particular hell, yet we continue to produce bio-fuels instead of food-crops and make no efforts to contain market forces that lead to mass starvation.

Progressives need to get rid of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation once-for-all and replace them with international organisations genuinely responsive to the needs of the neglected three-quarters of humanity. By the time he died in 1946, John Maynard Keynes had already drawn up blueprints for such organisations—we could do far worse than to exhume and improve them to suit today’s needs.

Everywhere we see elites anxious to end the democratic progress of past centuries and to put an unelected leadership [the EU Commission…] or technocrats [the IMF, the WTO...] faithful to their interests in charge. The constant struggle of progressives to preserve democracy pits them against their adversaries trying to undermine it: the democratic deficit must be the nexus of all our future action.

Perhaps because he recognises this, Barack Obama has emerged from near-political anonymity to occupy a pre-eminent place in the collective imagination and, one hopes, soon the office of the US President. In magnificent language, he gives people the sense of their traditions and achievements. Each time they were told they were not ready, that it wasn’t worth trying, that they could never win, they replied, “Yes we can”. The authors of the Declaration of Independence , the slaves and the abolitionists, the pioneers and the immigrants, the workers and the women, the New Dealers and the astronauts—all of them replied Yes we can.

Human history, and therefore the struggle for human emancipation, is not over and we must never insult the future. Let us hope that progressives worldwide, above all Europeans, will also unite around those words: Yes we can.

This article is a contribution to the debate on “The idea of progress in the 21st Century”, to be published in Spanish in TEMAS para el Debate, June 2008.

Susan George is Board Chair of the Transnational Institute and honorary president of Attac-France. Her latest books are La Pensée enchaînée: Comment les droites laïque et religieuse se sont emparées de l’Amérique [Fayard, 2007], to be published in English as: Hijacking America: How the Religious and Secular Right Changed What Americans Think [Forthcoming, Polity Press 2008], and We the peoples of Europe [Pluto Press, 2008].

Europe Deserves Much Better than the Lisbon Treaty

Ellie Keen — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:18:25 +0000

European history provides a showcase of human beings at their worst. Constant conflict, the two bloodiest wars ever waged, famine, brutal industrialisation, oppression of workers and women, religious strife, colonialism, fascism, communism – all these stain our past. But Europe also represents the best humankind has accomplished, giving the world the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, a constant struggle for emancipation, democracy and the separation of powers, the welfare state – not to mention universally recognised cultural contributions from Greek drama to Finnegans Wake , from the symphony orchestra to Irish folksong.

Born in the United States and a citizen of France, I am a fervent European. At this point in history, I believe only Europe can provide all its citizens with democratic government, dignified living standards, greater social equality, public services, universal healthcare and education. This small continent, with just 15 per cent of the world’s people, can lead the way towards ecological sanity and a liveable planet and prove nations can overcome even the most tenacious hatreds and live together in peace. Europe can be a counter-model to the myriad brutalities, affinity for war and stupendous inequalities on display elsewhere.

For these and other reasons, I voted no to the deeply flawed, undemocratic European constitution in May 2005. Had the French government not confiscated the people’s right to another referendum, I would have voted no again to the Lisbon (“Reform”) Treaty – a clone of the rejected constitution, except for “cosmetic changes” making it “easier to swallow”, as Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, principal author of the constitution, said. No flag, no Beethoven hymn, but the rest is there as Angela Merkel, José Manuel Barroso, Bertie Ahern and other relieved European notables all agreed.

The treaty contains no substantive changes. It’s just much harder to understand, worse even than the immensely complex constitution. Now we must deal with two European treaties (Rome, 1957, and Maastricht, 1992, with their subsequent revisions) to which Lisbon adds 145 pages of amendments plus 132 more pages of 12 protocols and 51 declarations, all legally binding, all superseding every law of the 27 member states.

There is no single text – you must cut, paste and collate the hundreds of pages for yourself. The very least one should require of a treaty that will dictate at least 80 per cent of all future legislation throughout Europe is that it be comprehensible. But complexity can be an effective weapon against democracy. Let us recall what commission vice-president Gunter Verheugen said after the French and Dutch No votes: “We must not give in to blackmail.” So much for universal suffrage and popular sovereignty.

There are a few beneficial changes to the defunct constitution. The new treaty gives the European Parliament, the only elected body, marginally more power to co-decide on legislation, although it still cannot initiate legislation.

However, the unelected European Commission remains all-powerful, particularly in crucial areas such as trade. A new article specifies the European goal of “integration of all countries into the world economy through the suppression of barriers to international trade”. Already trade commissioner Peter Mandelson is pushing for European corporate penetration in even the poorest countries, defining “barriers” as any government measure regulating foreign investment, public procurement, environmental or consumer protection.

The European Central Bank gets an even more iron-clad statute of independence from political supervision; its mandate remains control of inflation with no mention of full employment. The “market” (63 mentions in the text) remains the supreme good and “competition” (25 mentions) the overarching rule. Public services are specifically subjected to competition: government subsidies or other forms of support will become more precarious. European-wide social policies will require unanimous approval – this is a euphemism for a race to the bottom. The Charter of Fundamental Rights is inferior to most existing European constitutions.

Common security and defence policy places Europe firmly under the tutelage of Nato “which remains the foundation of the collective defence of its members”. We are signing on blindfolded for whatever Nato’s future policies may be – we only know for sure the US will remain in command. The treaty also obliges members to “progressively increase their military capacities”.

This Lisbon Treaty is a model of failed neo-liberal economic nostrums and misplaced confidence in the market and competition as universal panaceas. Europeans deserve better, beginning with an elected convention for drafting a constitution, time for full debate and a popular ratification process.

Europe has now surpassed the US as the wealthiest political entity. We can afford to retain and perfect the European social model, provide a decent livelihood for all and undertake a swift conversion to an ecological economy; we can afford to embody the ideal of the common good. Not to demand all this and more is a betrayal of whatever is best in our history. This may be Europe’s last chance.

Susan George is a Fellow and Chair of the Board of the Transnational Institute. Her latest books are La Pensée enchaînée: Comment les droites laïque et religieuse se sont emparées de l’Amérique [Fayard, 2007], to be published in English as: Hijacking America: How the Religious and Secular Right Changed What Americans Think [Forthcoming, Polity Press 2008], and We the peoples of Europe [Pluto Press, 2008].

European Union Policies and Migratory Pressures

Ellie Keen — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:25:21 +0000

In early October, the Research Directorate of the European Commission asked me to attend and make a brief presentation at an Expert Workshop entitled “Responding to Global Challenges: The Role of Europe and of International Science and Technology Cooperation”. I was careful to explain that I had fought against the Constitutional Treaty in France and written a book highly critical of the present positions of the European Commission. They said they knew that, repeated the invitation and left the subject up to me, so I went.

It seemed to me the most useful contribution I could make would be a proposal that Europe consider the impact of its own policies when examining the phenomenon of mass migration, rather than continuing to treat it entirely as a police-security issue. On the strength of my brief presentation, I was invited to sign up as an “expert” and, along with many of the other workshop participants, to expand my proposal. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and want to thank the people involved, particularly Virginia Vittorino and Sophie Thoyer. Sophie is preparing a publication from the various contributions but I’ve been very kindly authorised to put my contribution on my site prior to publication.

As the relevant agencies of the United Nations never fail to remind us, we live in an age of vast population movements. Millions of people are making the one-way transition from countryside to city, with the result that more than half the world now lives in an urban environment. Not infrequently, in countries like China, entire villages may be obliterated by mammoth “development” schemes and the inhabitants are relocated, usually under worse conditions. Millions more have been forcibly displaced by various types of armed violence within their own countries and are known as “internal refugees”. Finally comes the group that has already accomplished the rural-urban transition, sometimes thanks to the previous generation, and which, for reasons which remain to be fully explained, are desperate to migrate to foreign countries that they see as promised lands. These candidates for departure almost always seek to enter the wealthy OECD countries. Mexicans and Central Americans head for the United States; North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans, as well as Eastern Europeans and Central Asians, attempt to cross the borders of the European Union.

I. Defence and illustration of the hypothesis

The brief analysis and research proposal that follow will be confined to the EU but the observations made could as well apply to North America or Australia. Within Europe, responses to increasing migratory pressures have varied from country to country but initially at least, they all treat migration as a security problem, to be dealt with primarily by the police, the coast guard, the prison or retention-centre system and, in extreme cases, the army or the navy.

The common characteristic of their various security approaches is, however, that they have not worked. This, at least, is the case if the definition of measures that “work” are those that reduce or stop the phenomenon of migration, or limit it to well-educated individuals the receiving country is happy to accept. Present approaches have clearly not stemmed, much less prevented the flows of people entering Europe in a variety of more or less clandestine circumstances. To the contrary, they are arriving in greater and greater numbers, often under appalling conditions. More and more deaths in transit are reported yet still they make the attempt. Many more “hidden” immigrants are simply people who arrived on a tourist visa and never left.

Let us ask an apparently simple question: Is out-migration from “South” to “North” on such a scale a “normal” phenomenon? Young people especially want to travel, but few, given the choice, would choose permanently to leave their countries, familiar landscapes, food, childhoods, families, friends, memories, languages….without serious motives. They would especially not risk their lives and gamble their futures in order to cross the borders or reach the shores of Europe, only to be confronted—in case of success—with the life of a marginal “sans papiers”, a paperless person: menial, ill-paid jobs, precarious living conditions, crowded sub-standard housing, no civil rights, possible imprisonment and deportation, racism, xenophobia….

Should we not therefore accept at least the hypothesis that mass migration is not “normal”; that migration candidates would, more often than not, avoid it if they had other options; that the “push factors” causing people to leave their home countries in such numbers require much closer examination than they have so far received? Among such factors should we not also accept the hypothesis that, in the case of Europe [as would be the case for other OECD countries], its own policies may have more than a little to do with out-migration?

Even a quick survey of the literature on migration shows a surprising absence of any such hypothesis. Within my time constraints and in the interests of efficiency, I did not attempt an exhaustive search; I did, however look at the work done by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research [UNU-WIDER] which has organised various conferences and produced many discussion papers and publications on the issue of migration (1). Other sources examined include the publications of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society [COMPAS] at Oxford University (2) and the twenty years-worth of articles published by the REMI—Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales (3).

None seem even to have considered the idea that European policies might create or reinforce pressures in North African and Sub-Saharan societies to migrate. This also seems true for the impact of United States policies on its southern neighbours, judging by twenty years worth of output by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington which describes itself as the “only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy and ….impacts on the United States [of migration]” (4).

On one hand we are confronted with the evidence of increasingly desperate people willing to undertake harrowing, dangerous, long-distance journeys—journeys often requiring the life-savings of entire families and sometimes ending in death. On the other hand, virtually all the literature stresses that migration to Europe is caused by “poverty” or “socio-economic deterioration of the situation” at home; or “the growing gap” between North and South. These are the handy, catch-all explanations.

More sophisticated analyses may point also to the lack of security in countries torn by civil strife; improved communications and information systems that give an unrealistic picture of life in the rich countries; social solidarity networks established by and with previous immigrants; the fairly recent emergence of an entire industry of commercial, usually criminal, people-trafficking enterprises devoted to recruiting and smuggling migrants across international borders and so on. Those analyses that invoke “poverty”, “deterioration” and “gaps” do not seem to consider it their business to ask why these should exist on such a vast scale.

Two possible conclusions may be drawn from these remarks. Either [1] European economic/trade policies are universally beneficial to the southern “sending” countries and therefore contribute nothing to migratory pressures or [2] the supposedly benign nature of European policies vis à vis sending countries is the unspoken, quasi-universal assumption of governments, research institutes and academics. Thus the question of possible negative impacts does not even arise. If, however, EU policies are universally beneficial, as in alternative conclusion [1], we ought to be able to find proof to back up that claim—proof that would also be “falsifiable” in Karl Popper’s sense. If, on the other hand, this is an unspoken but unexamined assumption as in alternative conclusion [2], links between European policies and out-migration pressures might be shown to exist but have never been seriously looked for. In either case, but particularly in the second, it would seem that we face a research gap of quite staggering proportions.

Obviously one does not want to fall into the trap of the “mono-causal explanation” for any phenomenon, but in the case of such a major policy preoccupation for European governments and citizens as migration, surely it is worth examining seriously the impact of EU policies on population movements. Surely experience so far shows that the security-police approach is at best partial; at worst a failure and that root causes have not necessarily been identified, much less taken into consideration and dealt with.

European decision-makers of all political persuasions recognise that migratory flows from South to North constitute a problem area. These decision-makers should welcome more precise knowledge and assessment of the impact of European policies, not merely on Southern governments, but also on the lives of communities and the vast majority of Southern populations that constitute the human pool from which migration springs.

The overarching goal of European policy towards the sending countries should be that of the Hippocratic oath: “First, do no harm”. A courageous research programme has the duty to assess such harm, if it exists, and if so, to devise means to eliminate it and replace it with positive approaches. Nothing could improve the stature of the European Union with its Southern partners more than this. It is true that Europe, like any other political entity, has many constituencies to satisfy as well as many economic and political interests and cannot be expected to abandon them. Some of these constituencies and interests may, however, be quite limited in importance and of short-term value only. They could and should be replaced by the approach once known as “enlightened self-interest” which deserves a revival.

What might be the elements of such a research programme? Here follows a non-limitative “catalogue” approach. North-South research teams would be needed to deal with them. I wish to state at the outset that my own biases will be evident in some of the suggestions put forward for research work. I do not believe in “objectivity” in the social sciences and I have done too much work over past decades concerning the impact of certain Northern policies on Southern societies to put forward proposals for the EU with a “neutral” attitude.

This being clear, the key areas of European policies to examine concern debt and structural adjustment, trade [particularly with regard to food and agricultural goods] as well as tariff structures; subsidies, commodity prices; fisheries, the impact of European transnational corporations; Economic Partnership Agreements [EPAs].

On the side of the migrant-sending country governments, one should also consider incentives not to cooperate with the EU and even to encourage migration either overtly or tacitly. Southern governments know very well that remittances sent home by migrants constitute a substantial component of their revenues and that they relieve the poverty of a great many of their citizens and villages. For several countries, emigrants already represent their most valuable export. Governments know too that the “export of people” mitigates their own severe unemployment problems. For these governments, it can only be an advantage to have in particular fewer discontented, unoccupied young men around to cause trouble. These governments are only too happy for these people to be outside, not at home.

In addition to these present North-South aspects, particularly those linking the EU and North/Sub-Saharan Africa, one should also study and plan for the longer term impacts of climate change. We already know that drought-prone areas are set to become even drier and water-stressed populations will necessarily increase. In the same way, already humid areas are likely to experience more rainfall and floods. The rise of coastal waters will also create untold numbers of climate refugees seeking relief at any cost and severe weather events are slated to increase, with all their attendant dislocations.

II. European policies with possible or likely immigration-inducing impacts

1. Debt

Despite modest reductions, outflows from South to North remain a heavy burden on Southern countries and hamper their development. Research must quantify this burden and assess the current value—including monetary and non-monetary value—of reimbursement to individual EU countries and to the EU as a whole. What is the level of funds “sterilised” by debt repayments and therefore unavailable for development? What are the real impacts of debt-induced structural adjustment packages, particularly the privatisation of public services and export-orientation, particularly of agriculture? The debt “crisis” is in fact a chronic illness and ideally the EU should, with the help of research, devise a quick, clean, democratic, non-bureaucratic, corruption-free, “once-for-all” plan that can put an end to a problem that has festered for easily a quarter century.

Debt was accumulated for a variety of reasons; the borrowed money came from both public and private sources but in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, they were overwhelmingly public. Loans to oppressive regimes have been estimated at about $500 billion worldwide [including $22 billion to apartheid South Africa]. One would need to examine the “odious debt” aspects [jurisprudence since the 1920s distinguishes legitimate from “odious” debt, the latter going to dictators either with no benefit to the population or serving to oppress that population further]; but the recommendation here would be for cancellation of all types of debt (5).

Loans on the books to Low Income Countries [LICs], amounted in 2004-2005 to about $523 billion worldwide. Africa’s external debt, including that of North Africa, had by 2004 reached $300 billion with $227 billion for Sub-Saharan Africa alone. These sums are quite small by international standards but insuperable for Africa: in 2004, Sub-Saharan Africa was paying back $28.000 a minute [$15 billion a year] in debt service, according to World Bank-OECD figures. All the LICs taken together were then paying back $100 million a day/ nearly $70.000 a minute.

As of July 2005 at the time of the Gleneagles G-8 Summit, 28 countries had been assured of $56 billion in debt relief and 18 very poor countries, including 14 in Africa, were promised total cancellation. In such severely indebted countries, the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] will take 100 years to achieve on current trend lines. Civil society campaigns like that of Jubilee 2000 have led to pressure on the creditor governments, yet relief promised has always been very slow to translate into reality because the target countries are obliged to undertake further periods of structural adjustment before cancellations take effect. At least 65 countries have been estimated to need complete debt cancellation in order to have even a chance of meeting the MDG targets. This would cost the creditors about $80 billion/year. G-8 and other meetings tend to make spectacular announcements which turn out on closer examination to be misleading or remain unimplemented (6).

Intimately linked to the debt crisis is the enormous burden that capital flight from Africa has imposed on this poorest continent. Recent work by Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce of the University of Massachusetts reaches the conclusion that Africa’s wealthy have, during the period from 1970 to 2004, exported a total of $420 billion, nearly double the total debt burden of Sub-Saharan Africa in 2004, which in 2004 was $227 billion. Most of this money was not acquired legally. With the interest this capital could have accumulated over the 35 year period, the authors estimate the total loss to Africa at $607 billion. How complicit were European banks—and how lax might European governments have been—in allowing or encouraging this chronic drain? (7)

2. Structural adjustment

Beyond assessing the amounts presently owed, research should summarise the vast literature on the impact of structural adjustment policies accompanying debt, put in place by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, working in close cooperation with the United States Treasury. The elements of structural adjustment [also known as “Washington Consensus”] policies have been frequently and exhaustively studied; dozens if not hundreds of case studies exist on the impacts of high interest rates, export orientation and market liberalisation, privatisation; ‘cost-recovery’ [fee-paying] including fees for schools and health care—particularly detrimental to women and girls—and so on. These policies have caused increased hunger and deprivation, smaller numbers of children in school, chronic unemployment and hardship; millions have had to fall back on the informal sector (8). Although local populations benefitted little or not at all from the borrowed money, most of which went to the middle and upper consuming classes, “white elephant” projects, arms purchases or private accounts abroad; these populations have been obliged to pay it back with their sacrifices.

We already know that debt cancellation is affordable. Research would need to examine the amounts owed to specific EU countries and the total amount over which Europe could have an influence [including sums still owed to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund]. The sources for such work exist: the World Bank, the OECD and the London Club and the Paris Club are the main ones—although this researcher has found the Paris Club to be singularly uncooperative, indeed contemptuous of external requests for information. A mandate from the EU would undoubtedly be required to gain access to its data.

As for the Bank and the Fund, the IMF could continue to sell its gold without upsetting markets—indeed it would help to calm the sky-rocketing prices for the precious metal. As for the Bank, even if it were to write off all the debt owed to it by all the LDCs, it would simply return to its capital levels of 1997, when it was flourishing. The Bank has 400 percent more capital than it needs to keep the triple AAA rating for its bonds [all three of the best-known rating agencies rated its bonds AAA in 1997]. In addition, for the past 15 years, the Bank has made over a billion dollars a year in profits. European voting shares in the Fund/Bank amount to 16 percent for Germany, France and Britain alone, plus another 14 percent if one counts the groups presided by Belgium, Netherland and Italy. Surely 30 percent of the voting stock gives the EU enough influence in these International Financial Institutions to push for complete cancellation for North/Southern African debtors, based on solid research of the improvements that could be expected in these countries once freed from debt bondage.

Many argue that debt cancellation would simply lead to renewed indebtedness. One can, however, show—although research on these aspects is still thin—that when debt cancellation does occur, the money is on the whole well-used, for schools, clinics, immunisation, access to water…. [data exist from Tanzania, Uganda, Benin, Mozambique….]. The EU, if it were to require that African governments associate their own people in the choice of priorities for spending the money freed up by cancellation, could insure that savings on debt repayments were used wisely everywhere.

Indeed, in exchange for complete cancellation, the creditor countries of Europe should have the right to demand that the recipient governments be accountable to their own people for spending the savings. Some variant of the participatory budgeting process used in many Brazilian cities could be used; one could also call for the election of a council composed of people elected on both a geographical and a sectoral basis [i.e. farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, women, civil servants…] to sit alongside the government and determine the spending priorities.

Some argue that it is not possible to impose “conditionality” on these sovereign governments, but this argument is spurious given that IMF-Bank conditionality has been imposed for decades. Democratic conditionality could simultaneously contribute to solving many governance issues in recipient countries. Where such formulas have been tried [Brazil, Tanzania…] waste and mismanagement of funds is reduced to virtually zero. A small UN Agency—or a European agency—could dispense the sums concerned to the central bank of each debtor country; the government assisted by the Council of its own citizens would determine how to spend it. If the UN solution is chosen, the one that dispenses the international “airline ticket tax” proposed by the then president of France Jacques Chirac and accepted so far by about 15 countries could do such a job; this agency is called UNITAID.

Debt cancellation ought normally to create huge numbers of jobs in the LDCs as well as allowing for much higher spending on health, education and other necessities. It would contribute to job creation in Europe as well, as former debtor countries began to be able to spend on capital goods, rather than on economically sterile interest payments.

3. Commodity prices and trade

One of the most perverse impacts of debt is the export syndrome. All the indebted countries must earn hard currency to pay the interest owed and must therefore export. Particularly in Africa, indebted countries tend to export the same narrow range of primary products with the result that they produce more than markets can absorb and thus push down prices for everyone. Commodity prices have been declining since the 1970s. Lower prices paradoxically encourage overproduction because countries strive to keep their income stable by exporting even more. Subsidies of northern countries, i.e. US subsidies to its cotton producers make matters worse and appeals to the World Trade Organisation do little good.
The share of commodities [oil excluded] in world trade has declined from one-third to one-quarter since the mid-1990s. Because of mass privatisation under structural adjustment policies, governments no longer have the tools to manage carryover stocks or control quantities produced and traded. According to UNCTAD, fifty low income countries are dependent on 2-3 commodities; 39 are dependent on just one. The terms of trade are set massively against raw material producers, with the result that they must export one-third more today than in 1975-85 to buy the same quantity of manufactured goods.
Although China’s purchases have recently improved the prices of primary products somewhat, particularly for metals [which are never produced by smallholders but by large, usually foreign mining enterprises] the declines for cash crops have been consistent, e.g. an average 5.1 percent/ year for coffee; 6.9 percent for cocoa; 3.4 percent for cotton, since 1977. A Ugandan coffee farmer receives 14 cents a kilo for beans; the coffee in a UK supermarket eventually costs the consumer $26.40/kilo. [Figures from 2005, to be updated]. European tariffs are low to non-existent for raw materials but high when goods are processed in the producer countries into more elaborate goods. Poor countries cannot compete in processing their own commodities because they face these high barriers. The European “Everything but Arms” policy has, however, been a positive step which could inspire further ones.

4. European trade policies and exports to Africa

Subsidies in the North can contribute to ruining small farmers; see for example the impact of the above-mentioned US cotton subsidies on African producers. EU agricultural production is subsidised to the extent or about a billion euros a day: what proportion of those subsidies relate to products exported to African markets at prices below true costs of production? We need to know much more about the impact of European trade on small farmers and nascent industries in Africa, particularly the dumping of subsidised products. Some studies, particularly on dairy products, tomatoes and chicken, indicate that exports from Europe at unbeatably low prices have decimated local producers and processing industries [e.g. tomato paste production in Ghana]. There is probably more literature concerning NAFTA’s impact on Mexican farmers than on EU impact on their African counterparts. [NAFTA has ruined at least 350.000 poor Mexican farmers in the poorest States as cheap, industrially produced US corn has flooded Mexican markets].

European Union officials will be aware of persistent Northern NGO criticism of the EU’s present trade policies, whether in the WTO or in the various bilateral/multilateral agreements and EPAs [Economic Partnership Agreements] all of which contain detailed investment, raw-material access and government procurement provisions. The overwhelming bias towards the interests of European transnational corporations and the latter’s influence over EU trade policy seems in little doubt. EPAs have been challenged by a few African countries [Senegal, South Africa] but most are acquiescing.

The very least the Commission could do would be to monitor the actual behaviour and impact of European transnational corporations, particularly raw-material extractors, in the migrant-sending countries. On the occasion of the EU-Latin American Summit held in Vienna in May 2006, the Enlazando Alternativo [alternative summit] commissioned studies by Latin American NGOs and researchers on the impact of European TNCs in Central and Latin America. Their eye-witness reports yielded a wealth of information and, it must be said, highly negative results for local populations, whether the companies concerned were engaged in mining, utilities, agricultural, paper or financial industries.] (9)

5. Fisheries

The fish catch along the western coast of Africa has plummeted and small fisherman can no longer make a living. Many say that the depletion of stocks is due to overfishing by European industrial trawlers. Small fishermen are said to be selling their boats to the people-smuggling rings that use them to try to take migrants to the Canaries. The situation may be similar for countries bordering the Mediterranean. Aside from anecdotes, we know very little about this phenomenon.

Addendum: policies for which the EU is not directly responsible but which further impoverish migrant-sending countries.

Free trade: Initially, the World Bank announced that developing countries would see massive benefits [over $300 billion/year] from genuinely free trade. Under pressure from economists elsewhere, the Bank was obliged in successive stages to scale back its estimates to a mere $16 billion, half of which was expected to go to Brazil and Argentina. The most that the poor countries are likely to see from more free trade is a 1 percent increase in GDP over the next 10 years. (10)

The WTO has claimed that the stalled “Doha Development Round” would provide real gains for the South. However, the North, including the EU, has so far proposed granting access for only 97 percent of each southern country’s goods. This may sound generous, but due to the reliance of so many Southern countries on a very limited number of products, the North can easily place what each country can produce economically in the category of the 3 percent remaining. [NB: All the EPAs put forward by Europe are “WTO Plus”].

WTO banana decision: It may already be soon enough to assess the impact on local producers of the WTO ruling on the EU-ACP banana dispute. The preferential regime by which Europe guaranteed to purchase a set quantity of bananas from ACP countries was ruled WTO-illegal: Europe does not have the right to give any privileges to ACP countries and must accept, for example, the bananas produced on plantations by US transnational corporations like Chiquita Brands, in Ecuador or Central America. What has been the effect of this decision on poor ACP farmers? Has it increased their tendency to attempt migration?

Multi-Fibre agreement: The end of the Multi-Fibre agreement gave China a huge advantage in textiles. Chinese exports have had a large impact in Europe itself, but in the South, the effect has been devastating. Textile industries in places like Bangladesh, Cambodia or Central America are unlikely to recover. In Morocco, the industry has already shed hundreds of thousands of jobs. These unemployed workers are going back to kif [drug] production or attempting to emigrate. Can the EU do anything to mitigate these impacts? Clearly in this case, they cannot be ascribed to Europe’s own policies, but should they influence the EU’s attitude within the WTO or in other international-system and/or trade regimes?

Financial crises: Even before the present market turbulence and incipient recession stemming from—but not confined to—the subprime crisis, financial meltdowns have taken a heavy toll. The International Labour Organisation has estimated that over 90 “serious financial crises” occurred between the beginning of the 1990s and 2002, with great loss of economic security, jobs, livelihoods and savings. The ILO definition of “serious” is that the value of the currency dropped by at least 25 percent in a single month and that this drop was at least 10 percent greater than the fall of the previous month. In other words, these are crises in which the value of peoples’ bank accounts, insurance, social security, pensions, and so on fell by at least 35 percent within the space of two months. COUNTRIES OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT IN THIS CATEGORY WERE [to be supplied from the ILO report called Economic Security for a Better World , 2004,to which I do not have access at the moment].

Climate change: Surely the impact of rapid climate change is no longer in doubt and needs no more research per se. The IPCC has established that dry/humid areas will become more drought/flood prone, that extremes of temperatures and secondary impacts will strike the vulnerable in the South with greater force than in the temperate zones of the North. We have already witnessed catastrophic floods in Sub-Saharan Africa and know that stresses of all kinds will multiply. Here is a perfect opportunity for European S&T to propose clean and abundant energy systems [particularly solar] for the South, in an all-out development effort to change not just the South but also Europe’s own energy scenario. For the moment, palliative and relief programmes will be more necessary than ever.

Conclusion

During and after the decolonisation process, formerly colonised and/or dependent countries produced many brilliant and charismatic leaders [present at Bandung and beyond….]. These countries formed political groups like the Non-aligned Movement or the G-77 [which later numbered well over 100 countries]. From the 1970s in particular, they called for a New International Economic Order; various UN documents like the 1981 “Brandt Report” seconded many of their demands. It looked for a time as if there might finally be a fairer distribution of wealth in the world and greater opportunity for emerging nations. The North was obliged at least to pay lip-service to the demands emerging from a newly confident South.

In 1974 at the FAO Rome World Food Conference, Henry Kissinger [fresh from engineering the fascist coup in Chile] intoned that “Within a decade, no child will go to bed hungry, no family will fear for its next day’s bread…” Other conferences followed and the South thought, with some justification, that it was making progress. Gradually, however, the North, led by the United States, brought the situation back under northern control. Other dictatorships besides that of Pinochet were introduced and supported by the North and former colonisers often underpinned undemocratic and repressive regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Jamaica in 1981, the newly elected Ronald Reagan put a stop to the process of New Economic Order and greater autonomy once and for all.

The European Union as a comparatively new political entity has the opportunity to break with this past and show that it can not only cooperate but act as an advocate for permanent, equal partnerships in the South. Every ruined farmer, every unemployed youth, every fisherman without a livelihood is a candidate for migration. Europe can stop cutting off avenues to prosperity and development with its policies and make migration less necessary.

Naturally it would have to disappoint some more or less powerful European lobbies in the short term, but the benefits for Europeans as well as for the people of the South would be enormous. A fortress-Europe policy will not work and, under present circumstances at least, an “open borders” policy is politically unacceptable. The only other options are to reinforce the unsuccessful police-security-expulsion response or to study present European practices and decide to eliminate abuses—using research results to buttress the case. Otherwise, no one—particularly no European official—should profess surprise as they witness the steady flow of incoming migrants.

Notes

(1) UNU-WIDER, “Seminar on International Migration and Development: Patterns, Problems and Policy, United Nations, New York, 12 September 2006; or UNU-Wider seminar in 2001 on “International Migration and Poverty; also Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “What Fundamentals Drive World Migration?”, UNU-WIDER Discussion Paper no.2003/23. The ongoing WIDER project on Refugees, International Migration and Poverty is co-directed by George Borjas of Harvard and Jeff Crisp of the UNHCR.

(2) www.compas.ox.ac.uk/publications. There are ten subheadings of various types of publications.

(3) Revuee Européenne des Migrations internationales – Keyword search.

(4) www.cis.org Founded in 1985, the Center defines itself as non-partisan and non-profit; “pro-immigrant, low immigration”; that is, it aims for fewer immigrants and a better welcome for those who do come. The “Right Wing Watch” of People for the American Way considers the CIS as a rightist organisation. It is thus all the more surprising that CIS has shown no apparent interest in US policy contributions to “push factors”.

(5) Patricia Adams, Odious Debts, Probe International, Earthscan, Toronto, 1991

(6) Susan George, A Fate Worse than Debt, Penguin, London 1987; Susan George, The Debt Boomerang, Pluto Press, London, 1992; Patricia Adams, Odious Debt, PUBLISHER DATE; more recent figures regularly published by the Comité pour l’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers-Monde-CADTM, www.cadtm.org

(7) Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce, Tax Justice Focus, the quarterly journal of the Tax Justice Network, First quarter 2008, Volume 4 no.1,

(8) In a memorable presentation, A.T. Moussa Tchangiri,
director of the magazine Alternative in Niger, at the World Social Forum in Bamako [January 2006] described in fine detail how forced privatization policies [of transport, cereal stock-holding, veterinary services, etc.] had directly contributed to widespread famine in that country.

(9) http://peoplesdialogue.org/en/node/39

(10) Kevin Gallagher of Tufts University, who also attended the EU meeting that gave rise to the present series of papers, including mine, has written decisively on this issue.