Agence France Presse - November 8, 1999
WORLD SOCIALIST LEADERS MULL GLOBALISATION, REBUFF BLAIR'S "THIRD WAY"
Socialist leaders from more than 140 nations, gathered to mull a
joint response to the challenges of globalisation, were opting Monday
for traditional values of social justice rather than the liberal
approach touted by Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard
Schroeder.
And even Blair and Schroeder, among a bevy of heads of state and
government attending the last Socialist International of the
millennium, agreed that the old Socialist goals spelled out a century
ago remained a cornerstone to left and centre-left policies for the
21st century.
Gathered under a banner proclaiming "a more humane society, a world
more fair and just", the 1,000-odd delegates in Paris for the
three-day conference were to adopt later Monday a declaration
"pledging to give globalisation a social dimension, to make it serve
humankind."
A draft copy of the text to be approved later by the movement, now in
power in countries across the globe, including in 11 of the 15
European Union states, calls for the cancellation of the debt of the
world's poorest nations and for renewed efforts against poverty and
hunger.
With many world leaders in Paris, including Argentina's newly-elected
President Fernando de la Rua, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a host of diplomatic talks were
being organised on the sidelines of the conference proper.
And as leaders of the movement of social democratic -- or democratic
socialist -- parties described it "as the globe's sole organised
political movement", a note of historic solemnity swept the large
hall assembling politicians from every continent, the latest member
being Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.
"This gathering," said Blair, "comes at an important time. There is a
debate underway about the future of the left. Whether we can set out
a vision for the left that can combine our traditional emphasis on
social justice with the necessities of the new economy of the 21st
century."
"Whether in other words we can stand for fairness and enterprise
together. My case is that we can and we must."
"Leave aside labels that are used by the media," Blair added,
referring to the business-orientated "Third Way" platform he signed
this year with Schroeder, irritating French Socialist Prime Minister
Lionel Jospin.
"When I say New labour means enterprise and fairness, and Lionel
(Jospin) says he believes in a market economy but not a market
society, we are both saying we must rise to the challenge of change;
find different ways, for our own different countries, of reaching the
same goals, inspired above all by our true and last values:
solidarity, social justice, a community based on opportunity for all."
Schroeder, apparently on the defensive after a string of election
losses after only a year in office, also stressed that his party
remained attached to the same "basic values" that have bonded the
Socialist International for around a century.
The German chancellor, who was marking the 10th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall, said Berlin was working for a Europe that
was both an "economically efficient continent but also a socially
just one."
In a lyrical and much-applauded speech, France's Jospin stressed that
the market is no more than "an instrument, an efficient and precious
one. But it is only an instrument. It needs to be regulated. It must
remain at the service of society."
"We refuse the merchandisation of societies," he said. "Health is not
a merchandise. The works of the mind are not merchandise. The work of
men is not merchandise."
Globalisation could not be reduced to free trade, he said.
"Globalisation is the realisation that mankind has a common destiny."
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