By Ted van Hees
Eurodad/OneWorld Online Forum on WSSDSeptember 9, 2002
"Once back in the Netherlands, let's not only talk about the negative results", said the new Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Pieter Balkenende during a lunch with NGOs last Wednesday in Johannesburg. 'Follow up' was also essential, he stressed, together with other European policymakers. Because, at the end of the day, the outcome was not that bad, they told us.
To be able to look forward, we first have to draw up the balance. As an NGO-member of the delegation of the European Union (EU), I monitored for ten days negotiations on the text on 'globalisation, finance and trade' of the Plan of Implementation, the major document of the Summit. In between the sessions of this group I talked with negotiators from the developing countries and from the EU, proposed with my NGO-colleagues better alternatives etc. On a daily basis, we evaluated the development of positions with a group of NGO-representatives from South and North. We had our daily briefings of the EU delegation (Commission and Danish Presidency), sometimes together with Euro parliamentarians. Moreover, we assessed progress in our field of work in a larger context in meetings of participants of the Eco Equity Coalition, a unique coalition of most of the global environmental and development organisations, such as Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth International, Oxfam International, Consumers International and now Eurodad. At crucial moments in the negotiations, we organised as NGOs small actions to put pressure and mobilise the media.
Together with many of these colleagues, I have to say that the Rio+10 Summit overall is a failure, unfortunately. Too much damage control, Balkenende conceded. The beautiful words in speeches (e.g. Chirac the champion in talking about poverty, but not one time mentioning subsidies; Berlusconi forgetting to mention the word environment), the Plan of Implementation or the Political Declaration do not manage to mask the many vague promises, the lack of concrete targets and timelines, the frequent passages in the text of terms like "as appropriate", "feasibly", "where possible", "on a voluntary basis". The few (as such important) lightning points in the area of water and sanitation, chemicals, over-fishing, and corporate responsibility and accountability cannot take away this impression of failure.
Who to blame? First of all the US with her systematic obstruction, often supported by the so-called JUSCANZ-group (Japan, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). Further, the wavering and lack of prioritisation of the EU and the internal division within the G77/China. The Dutch Prince Willem Alexander rightly blamed the horse-trading. Horse trading between the two major blocks, the US and the EU, resulting in the exchange of targets and priorities at the expense of nature and environment, sustainable development and poverty eradication. For, these are the victims of this Summit. It is unacceptable to sacrifice targets on better and cleaner energy to secure those on water and sanitation. Therefore, both are too important for the future of our planet and the people lacking these facilities.
Let me now address two other less covered examples in the area of globalisation and the international economy.
"Let the winner speak first", as a representative of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said when he got the word in a panel discussion on the last day of the Summit. He rightly observed that the WTO and its agenda for the further liberalisation of world trade had won. It was our hope that J'burg would further sharpen the principles of Rio by establishing the primacy of environmental degradation, sustainable development and poverty eradication in a new framework for international trade and global financial flows. The opposite happened. This major role of the WTO and further liberalisation of markets can be found in many parts in the text, while reduction of subsidies has been formulated in vague terms: reform, not the phasing out or elimination of subsidies and no timeline. This implies that poor countries further need to open their markets for Western companies and their products, whereas subsidies on many of these products only will be abolished (if at all) on the longer term. In their Farm Bill, the US have increased agrarian subsidies to unprecedented levels In the EU, France is blocking with Ireland and Southern Europe any progress on this issue. The competitive capacity of developing countries will continue to deteriorate the next few years with all the negative consequences for poverty and non-sustainable development that this entails.
The unpayable debt of the poorest countries has been hardly discussed at this Summit, whereas there was the opportunity to reformulate what a level of sustainable debt is in terms of goals of human and sustainable development. The UN Conference in Monterrey early this year had made a first step in this direction by defining this concept in terms of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), i.e. halving poverty by 2015. Here in Johannesburg, this line could have been pursued further by adding goals on responsible natural resource environmental management. Instead, there is a fall back to before Monterrey.
Is there nonetheless a way forward after Johannesburg? What are the positive perspectives? I mention three here. First, the global NGO-coalition (which already existed for a moment in Rio, but fell apart thereafter) shall and must continue and organise effective pressure to ensure that countries achieve the Rio and Johannesburg goals. We have invited Balkenende and his team to take the lead at the national and the European level. They reacted enthusiastically to this challenge. Second, the EU has formed a Coalition of the Willing with a group of developing countries to attain together the targets on clean energy. We hope that this coalition will extend to other policy areas. Finally, the next battle on the Johannesburg agenda is in a few weeks in Washington, where we will discuss with other NGOs ways to revitalise the international debt campaign, with an eye on the poorest countries, but also on the impoverished Argentinas and Indonesias of this world. Similar plans exist for the preparation of the next WTO conference, next year in Mexico.
We challenge the EU Commission and member states to go with us on the road from damage control to genuine sustainable development and poverty eradication.
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