European Social Forum 2002

Friends of the Earth at the European Social Forum

From 6-9 November, the European Social Forum (ESF) (http://www.fse-esf.org) took place in Florence, Italy, as the first regional meeting based on the World Social Forum, Porto Alegre. The ESF brought together over
60 000 people, from Europe and beyond, concerned about corporate-led globalisation. The event included meetings, seminars, workshops, theatre, concerts, and film showings and culminated in a peaceful demonstration on 9 November attracting around 1 million people.

Friends of the Earth Europe and International representatives from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and the UK participated and spoke at various panels, seminars and meeting at the ESF, highlighting the issues of corporate accountability, trade justice, and ecological debt, as well as challenging activities of the WTO, the European Investment Bank and export-credit agencies.

Highlights of the FoE events that reached out to thousands of people were:

• After Johannesburg - World Summit for Sustainable Development: Don't let big business rule the world, a joint FoEE/Legambiente seminar with presentations by Vandana Shiva (Re-search Foundation for Service, Technology and Natural Re-source Policy - India), Daniel Mittler (BUND - FoE Germany), Christophe Aguiton (Attac - France) and Mauro Albrizio (Legambiente - Italy).

• A panel discussion with Tony Juniper, vice chair of FoEI on 'Water, air and earth: Europe opposing unsustainable development', including other presentations from Wolfgang Sachs from the Wuppertal Institute, Ger-many, and Ricardo Petrella from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

• The Road to Cancun: civil society strategies for the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference with Walden Bello (Focus on the Global South), Cecilia Oh (Third World Network), Manuel Perez Roch (RMALC, Mexico), Olivier Hoedeman (CEO) and Alexandra Wandel (FoEE).

• 'The Europe that finances the disaster: the case of the European Investment Bank', seminar organised by FoEI/CEE Bankwatch (Magda Stoczkiewicz) / Reform the World Bank/CEE Bankwatch and Rete Lilliput.

• Cancel the Debt and Stop Structural Adjustment, a seminar organised by FoE France (Sebastien Godinot) and CAD-TM dealing with the role of the EU, debt and export-credit agencies.

At events and the final social movement assembly on 10 November FoEE proposed to the ESF that social and environmental movements should join forces and meet again next year with even greater numbers of people in a renamed European Eco-Social Forum. The next ESF will take place in Paris, France at the beginning of November 2003.

Contact:
Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth Europe, alexandra.wandel@foeeurope.org
Sébastien Godinot, Les Amis de la Terre France, finance@amisdelaterre.org

More details on the program of the ESF: click here