30/05/2006 11:38:18 am
Defining Moment For European Parliament. Tomorrow, the European Parliament will debate a report about global trade and the fight against poverty. On Thursday, they will decide whether its contents will constitute the position of the entire Parliament. If they do, the document will form part of a basis on how the European Commission will regard these matters.

How the Members of the European Parliament vote will be very important. It is one of those defining moments. The report is written by the German Socialist Helmuth Markov and is very critical indeed to free markets and free trade. It contains the usual blame on globalisation for poverty in the world, focus on equality instead of lifting the poor and proposes various social and other conditions to be put before free trade.

The report has the wrong analysis of the world and therefore destructive proposals that would increase global poverty. I am not entirely certain what legal position the document would have in the end. But I am sure that it would be a great leap forward for socialists and critics of free markets to have the entire European Parliament behind their view of the world. And there is a great risk that this gets into the EU machinery in the years to come.

So, for Europe?s sake, but even more for the sake of the poor in the world - MEP:s, vote against this!

Read the report here - >