Brussels, 03/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The P7/P8 Summit (of some of the world's poorest countries) will be held at the Parliament in Brussels on 4/6 December under the title Food Sovereignty and Democracy - Let the world feed itself. This is the fifth year in a row that the European Parliament Greens/EFA group and the P7/P8 network have organised this counter-summit echoing the traditional G7 (+Russia) summits of the world's richest countries and this year the P7 will be addressed by experts, politicians and representatives of civil society from the South (India, Zimbabwe, Mali, Senegal, Mexico, the Philippines, Iraq and Cuba) on the ethical, agricultural and economic facets of the North/South food problem against the backdrop of globalisation. Four panel discussions will look at "International institutions and food sovereignty in countries in the Southern hemisphere - problem or solution"; The European Union and its relations with third countries; food security as a victim of productivism; from pesticides to GMOs; and prospects and alternatives in the move towards food sovereignty.
Paul Lannoye and Nelly Maes from the Greens/EFA group; Vandana Shiva, honorary President of the P7 (India); Alfredo Gutierez Yanis, Deputy Cuban Agricultural Minister; Ana-Maria Ruiz Diaz, coordinator of the Red de Permacultura (Mexico); and Amadou Kanouté from the International Consumer Organisation (Zimbabwe) will be participating. Eddy Boutmans, Belgian Co-operation and Development Minister, will attend the closing ceremony where the P7's alternative proposals will be outlined.
After the Summit, a P7/P8 delegation will hand Guy Verhofstadt (Belgian Prime Minister, who is chairing the EU Council of Ministers) the participants' reaction to the open letter to anti-globalisation activists that was published in the international media in the run-up to the Ghent European Summit.