A few stances on European affairs taken during this section's short break deserve to be highlighted, together with a few personal comments.
So much the better for Europe. Following a disagreement in the ranks of the French political movement of which he is a member, Daniel Cohn-Bendit said: “As far as I'm concerned, the term national party is over. I am putting myself at European level. End of story.” This means that he intends to focus on his role as a member of the European Parliament.
My reaction is simply this: so much the better for Europe. This statement does not imply that every opinion on every initiative and stance taken will coincide. To give you an example, I take the view that his campaign calling on the EU to welcome all illegal immigrants arriving on its shores, whether or not they are entitled to asylum, was demagogic and dangerous. But his role at the European Parliament is irreplaceable, his contribution to European unity stirring and highly valuable. It is extremely good news that he intends to focus on this job.
Germany needs immigrants, but… The five-strong team of the wise which the German Chancellor asked to carry out a study into the economic and social prospects of her country summed up the demographic situation as follows: the birth rate has halved over the last 50 years, with the effect that the number of people living in the country will have dropped by ten million by 2050. In order to stabilise the population, it will take a flow of 350,000 immigrants a year. But to prevent negative repercussions on production and therefore on the country's wealth, most of these immigrants should possess a high level of professional qualifications.
This analysis shows that immigrants are needed, but that the power of the country's economy could be compromised to an extent if they are not already trained, for the most part. Young people from other parts of the world will of course be attracted by German wages and standards of living. The result would be that the efforts and sacrifices made by the countries of origin to train their young people would end up benefitting the German economy. This is something that needs thinking about, to strike a balance.
A trap for the Socialists? A commentator, who is not alone (which is why I am not naming any names), thinks that the Socialist parties of the countries of the EU should be somewhat wary of any election wins over this period. Why? Because, in this scenario, they would have to continue with or introduce austerity measures, which are needed to redress the budgetary imbalances that exist virtually everywhere, which is not an appetising situation from an electoral point of view! The countries in which the Socialists are in power now or recently know this only too well: the pills to be given out to their voters are bitter ones; the troubles currently faced by Mr Papandreou, Mr Zapatero and a few others are a likely precursor of those which await any Socialist majorities in the near future, according to that theory.
There is a certain logic to this line of argument. But the Socialists who aspire to take power are, quite logically, convinced that they can do a better job than those they seek to replace; for this reason, the above logic will have no influence on their aspirations to govern and on the behaviour that will allow them to succeed in this.
Pascal Lamy resigned to realism. The director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has gone on record as saying that negotiations on the next phase of the opening-up of the global markets, the Doha Round, which have been dragging on for so long, cannot now be concluded by the end of the year. The ambitions must be scaled down; the objective must now be to consolidate, this year, the progress that is more or less a done deal so far, whilst recognising that any further progress is realistically out of the question. We will have to make do with these achievements, keeping in place the possibility of the extra results initially targeted, particularly in favour of the least-developed countries.
This statement is not a million miles away from the opinion I have expressed in this section on several occasions. To remind our readers: (a) the so-called “emerging” countries (which have in fact already emerged) accept the reduction or outright removal of customs duties, but have misgivings in many other related fields: public procurement, intellectual property, etc.; (b) the more advanced countries will not waive these additional elements; what's more, some of them, including the EU, are calling for tough environmental conditions and production rules as a prerequisite for opening up their agricultural markets any further.
The opinion I have already enlarged upon in this section is that freedom in trade must be subject to disciplines which safeguard the natural balance and contribute to the fight against world hunger; the Doha Round must respect these goals and help to make them a reality, or it must scale down its ambitions. (F.R./transl.fl)