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European civil society campaign against EU's corporate led trade policies starts in Budapest


Brussels/Budapest 17.02.05 - Civil society groups from all over Europe gathered in Budapest for a three-day pan-European strategy meeting in opposition to the aggressively pursued corporate led policies of the European Union within the international trade arena.

For the first time since it was established in 1999, the "Seattle to Brussels Network" - a pan-European network campaigning to promote a sustainable, socially and democratically accountable system of trade (1) - held its annual gathering in a Central and Eastern European (CEE) country thanks to the support of the Hungarian eco-political organisation "Protect the Future". The meeting, which followed a three-day international conference on public services privatisation, saw a significantly high participation from organisations from across the CEE region. Participants paid testimony to the negative social and environmental impacts of corporate led trade policies within their own countries, as well as to the undemocratic character of the negotiations both at European and international level.

Zsolt Boda, Protect the Future spokesperson, stated "we have learned how the whole decision-making on trade policies within EU is flawed and undemocratic and how European citizens are getting organised to reclaim political space and our right to define which trade policies we want if we are to protect the environment and fundamental social life values. We have to see that not only our governments and local business interests are putting forward the privatisation of hospitals and the closure of small post offices, and favouring agri-business over small farmers, but that this is a trend aggressively promoted and supported from Brussels and by other international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation."

Civil society activities in 2005 will focus on up-coming European Council trade ministerial meetings with an aim to denounce the European Commission's responsibilities in aggressively pursuing further liberalisation at the expense of peoples both in the North and the South to the advantage of trans-national corporations. All efforts will be aimed at challenging EU Trade Commissioner Mandelson and the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in a similar fashion to the Cancun experience in September 2003.

"With Peter Mandelson as EU Trade Commissioner democracy takes another body blow from spin and big business", says Alexandra Wandel, trade coordinator of Friends of the Earth Europe. "Big corporations will be the big winners, people and the environment the losers of the EU's trade agenda. The time has come to fundamentally change the trade policies of the EU and to make them just, sustainable and democratically accountable.

Ends

Contact:

Zsolt Boda, Protect the Future, Tel. + 36 70 5307277

Alexandra Wandel, FoEE, tel: ++49 172 748 39 53


(1) See http://www.s2bnetwork.org

 

Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the protection of the environment,
unites more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups
and is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International.