On Sun, 19 Sep 1999, Wes Burt quoted EU Commissioner Pascal Lamy:
> Globalisation: a win-win process
I guess a nice illustration of this "win-win process" is the ongoing
EU--U$ trade war over U$ hormone beef. If Globalisation finally succeeds,
the EU will lift its ban on this beef saturated with genetically engineered,
carcinogenic growth hormones, so the EU's consumers can finally eat the stuff!
Clearly a win-win process: U$ corporations can sell more hormones, beef and
cancer drugs, and the EU farmers in Mr. Lamy's country can resume exporting
their Foie Gras and truffles, without those nasty 100% punititive tariffs on
them. (So much for teaching other countries what Free Trade means !)
Mr. Lamy surely hopes this will happen before the local farmers will have
devastated all McDonald's outlets in his country...
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ snip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Debating the threats of globalisation
>
> I am particularly aware of the requirement for debate on trade policy.
> I know that part of public opinion in Europe focuses more on the risks
> than the benefits of globalisation. Such opinion is concerned about
> possible instability, aggression, loss of identity. I do not share
> these concerns, but we have to take on board these worries, and seek
> to convince our fellow European citizens that the answers lie in the
> quality of our own internal policies, and in progress towards
> multilateral rules. We must not allow globalisation to become an
> alibi, or to be seen as a malign influence. This requires reflection,
> dialogue, openness to debate. <<
Too bad that so far, the EU Commission's policy represented quite the
opposite of "reflection, dialogue, openness to debate" as far as the
citizens are concerned. Let's hope the new Commission will do a better
job than the old one (which had to go after the great scandal), but
Mr. Lamy's NewSpeak style doesn't seem to give much reason for hope...
Chris
___________________________________________________________________________
"GLOBALIZATION: The undermining of the nation state as a focus of economic
organization; the reduction to commodity status of worldwide raw-goods
suppliers; the monopolization of distribution channels by transnational
trading companies; the reduction of health & quality standards to least-
common-denominator levels." -- The New World Order Dictionary
