Brussels, 24/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - In a press release deploring the "sorry outcome" of the G8, the Green/EFA Group of the European Parliament considers that "the Genoa Summit answered no legitimate questions put by those disputing globalisation organised by and for multinational financial groups and whose ecological and social consequences are disastrous".
On the whole, the G87 leaders only confirmed their faith in free-trade and the "inequitable" rules of international trade, is what the Group says in substance, which only detects as positive outcome of the meeting the "timid" recognition of the relevance of easing the debt for the poorest countries and the creation of a Fund Against Infectious Diseases. The Greens also deplore the fact that differences over the Kyoto Protocol were not overcome. But they wax indignant especially at the fact that the final conclusions of the G8 stress the fundamental importance of a public debate, whereas they (the leaders) envisage nothing to stimulate it and that they sanctioned a brutal and indiscriminate repression of the forces of law and order faced with demonstrators the great majority of whom were non-violent". That is why the Group intends, at Parliament's next plenary session, early-September, to ask the Commission and Council to explain themselves on the events of Genoa and set out the political initiatives they intend to take to organise a genuine dialogue with civil society at the next WTO Summit, in Qatar and the forthcoming European Summit of Laeken.