Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I believe the G8 summit in Genoa will come to be regarded as a milestone in our political life and will probably be seen as marking a turning point in European and international political life. This is not, unfortunately, because of the joint undertakings given by the richest countries in the world to respond to the serious problems facing the poorest countries – and let me point out that the North-South gulf has never been so wide – but rather because of the particular context in which this summit took place. Mr Vitorino has rightly reminded us of certain decisions or at least guidelines that were adopted at that summit, but I do not think we should give them more importance than they deserve. It is true that we heard a rather timid acknowledgement of the importance of relieving the debt burden on the poorest countries, but no more than that. It is also true that a global health fund was set up to combat infectious diseases, but the total funding is pretty inadequate; it was set at EUR 1.3 billion, while the UN Secretary-General believes that EUR 10 billion is needed. On the other hand, there is no sign of any common resolve to rectify the inequalities by achieving the long-promised objective of contributing 0.7% of gross domestic product to development aid. There is no more talk of that. The participants did, however, vigorously reiterate their faith in the virtues of the market, free trade, the development of new genetic engineering technologies and the international trade rules. Today, the European Union certainly wants to launch a new WTO round, but is that any answer to the problems caused by the unfair WTO rules? The WTO’s decision-making rules are indeed unfair in that they penalise the poorest countries compared with the rich ones, if only by giving the poor countries limited access to the information that would enable them to play a proper part in this decision making. So, no response at all, no real response to the demands and protests of tens of thousands of demonstrators – and, more generally, of a very broad sector of European public opinion – who reject or challenge a globalisation that is essentially financial and commercial. It is not globalisation as such that they are protesting about, but its basically financial and commercial nature. I think that distinction needs to be made. I therefore believe that the European Union must take specific initiatives in this regard and first of all it must no longer seem deaf to the voices of protest. In this context I welcome the Belgian government’s proposal to debate the Tobin tax at the next Ecofin summit. I think that is a good initiative, which ought to be followed by others of the same kind. First and foremost, however, we need to establish a real dialogue with the parliaments: Mr Barón Crespo is right to say that parliaments are, after all, the prime representatives of public opinion; that is obviously true. The European Parliament and the national parliaments must be the forum where the governments explain their initiatives. In addition, however, to the parliaments – for we are no longer living in the conventional world of politics we knew 50 years ago – we must talk to the associations, talk to organised civil society. In my view, that is essential. Many associations have put forward important ideas and serious arguments; to dismiss them is a political error. Like everyone here, I deplore and condemn the violence of the Black Blockers demonstrators but, at the same time, I can only condemn the unacceptable behaviour of the Italian police who trampled on human rights in Genoa.

Political group: Verts-ALE