Mr President, all the political groupings are aware of the serious nature of the colla in coffee prices on the international market. How could we fail to be aware of this since these prices are the lowest in real terms that have been recorded for the past century? All the political groupings are aware of the disastrous impact that this fall in coffee prices will have on the economy of a number of the poorest countries in the world. At the same time, however, we are all raising our hands to the heavens as a sign of impotence and proposing that a particular international summit should add the issue to the agenda, and giving good advice on retraining or diversification, and proposing lessons in popularisation for the peasants we are suffocating, and we are calling for a little something to be released to help the worst affected countries. However, four international trusts, – Nestlé, Kraft, Sara Lee and Procter and Gamble – control half of all world coffee sales. In other words, this means that prices are established by these four trusts. They are the ones that reduce the price paid to farmers in order to make ever-increasing profits. In order to pay greater dividends to their shareholders, they bring hardship to dozens of poor countries and therefore to tens of millions of peasants and their families. I have observed that the European Parliament and the Heads of State are powerless to stop these four trusts and, instead, merely call for charity. The common resolution, however, dares to recommend an increase in the power of coffee farmers on the market. As if poor peasants in Rwanda, Ethiopia or Haiti could oppose Nestlé and its counterparts, when the European Parliament does not dare to do so! If that is not hypocritical, I do not know what it is. The simple fact that the common resolution mentions the four coffee trusts responsible for price reductions makes the representatives of the group’s skin crawl, so much so that they are calling for the paragraph that mentions the trusts to be deleted. Go ahead and conceal the names of these trusts, since I cannot bear to look at them! Parliament is full of hypocrites! What is true for coffee is also true for the other raw materials, particularly oil. Those who have bombed Iraq, killing civilians, women and children claim they are doing so in order to free Iraq from its dictator. Saddam Hussein, however, who butchered his own people, was their henchman for years. They are the ones who provided him with weapons and encouraged him in the war against Iran. They are the ones who sold him weapons to massacre and gas the Kurds, and people have the gall to present the invading troops as liberators when all they are doing is carrying out the dirty work of the oil and weapons trusts. In order to put an end to this pillaging of the planet to increase the wealth of a few trusts, in order to put an end to the flagrant inequality between the wealthy in wealthy countries and the poor in poor countries, and in order to prevent the poor being starved to death or being massacred in wars designed to preserve this situation, we have absolutely no other option but to put an end to the international economic system.

Political group: GUE-NGL