Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

As I have a farcically short time in which to address the issue of Europe and the developing world, I will confine my comments to the role the European Union must play in challenging the malign influence of the international financial institutions in developing countries. I agree, in particular, with the comments of the previous three speakers.

The plight of developing countries has been demonstrably aggravated by the policies and actions pursued by the IMF and the World Bank. These organisations pursue neoliberal and free market policies that take no account whatsoever of the social and human costs to developing countries. Their policies in recent decades have contributed to the overwhelming burden of debt under which developing countries toil.

Voting rights in the IMF and the World Bank are stacked in favour of the developed states, particularly the USA, and against developing countries. The selection procedures for IMF and World Bank leaders are totally undemocratic. These institutions are little more than sophisticated tools of modern imperialism. The European Union must take a lead role in pushing for the abolition of the World Bank and the IMF and, importantly, for the creation of new financial instruments under the control of a democratised UN.

The European Union must also use its position of power and influence to advance the demand for the immediate abolition of the IMF-imposed structural adjustment programmes, which force Governments in developing countries to open up their states' economies to export more and spend less, thus reducing public spending drastically, cutting social budgets in areas such as health, education, housing and infrastructure, and ending subsidies on products and services of primary necessity. The so-called structural adjustment programmes have had drastic consequences for local populations in the affected countries because living conditions have deteriorated substantially since their introduction.

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