Mr President, in view of the grave events which have taken place in Bolivia, I believe nothing could be more dangerous than to take a simplistic and demagogic view of them, since this would lead us to make serious errors in our interpretation of the situation. I believe that, in order to approach this problem in a correct manner, we should work on the basis of two premises: firstly, the situation of horrendous inequality, social exclusion and poverty. Let us not forget that Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, with an imperfect, incomplete democracy, which is far from being the effective and functional democracy it should be, and neither must we forget, Mr President, the long tradition of military coups in that country. These factors, amongst others, create a very fertile breeding ground for the emergence of populism based on social frustration, which has been very well described by such a widely respected person as the writer – and one time politician – Mario Vargas Llosa, following the frustrated privatisations in the Peruvian city of Arequipa. What is certainly the case – as Vargas Llosa also tells us – is that a sort of re-emergence of populism is taking place, as a result of the failure of certain reforms for opening up the markets and for privatisation, in some cases presented falsely as neo-liberal, and the only alternative is the old nationalist and Statist model of development with a domestic focus, to which – together with dictatorships – these countries owe much of their marginalisation and misery. I therefore believe it is important, Mr President, that we are able to distinguish, because many believe a war is being waged on corruption and in favour of justice when, in reality, a battle may be breaking out in favour of more backwardness and poverty. That is what happened in Arequipa and, although the two cases are not exactly the same, there are consequences from this Peruvian phenomenon which could perhaps explain, or be applied or extrapolated within the context of Bolivia’s experience. There are two worrying elements to the situation: one of them is the three months that the leader of the opposition and coca-grower, Evo Morales, has given them to resolve the situation in the country, and the other is the holding of a referendum on privatisation and the sale of gas. I believe that the European Union, as the Commissioner quite rightly said, must appeal for moderation and good sense, so that a constructive dialogue between all the parties may be initiated in order to generate a climate of trust and understanding. I also believe, Mr President, that we must reiterate our firm and decisive support for the democratic system, for the Rule of Law and for constitutional order and also express our condolences – as the Commission has done – to the people and the Government of the Republic of Bolivia, for the loss of human lives. In the compromise resolution we also call for this Parliament to send a delegation to the Republic of Bolivia to analyse the situation on the ground and stress the need to increase efforts aimed at the physical, political, social and economic reconstruction of the country in order to make it governable. We take a positive view of the efforts announced by the Commission, but we believe that these efforts must be increased since the mobilisation of a sum of EUR one million is entirely insufficient, given the poverty afflicting that country and we believe that the funds requested by this Parliament, and included in the European Union’s budget for 2004, in order to create a regional solidarity fund, could be a very useful instrument for dealing with crises such as the one which is regrettably unfolding in Bolivia at the moment.

Political group: PPE-DE