EUobserver | February 1, 2002 | Written by Daniela Spinant, Edited by Blake Evans-Pritchard
French prime minister Lionel Jospin on Wednesday pleaded for a mastered globalisation, which would correct the market drifts. Three months before presidential elections in France and on the eve of the anti-globalisation forum in Porto Alegre, the French prime minister called for setting up an Economic and Social Security Council within the United Nations, in order to introduce global rules based on the search for common well-being.
Mr Jospin believes that the present G7 has no legitimacy for being the arbiter of global rules, and the United Nations need to establish a forum that masters and regulate. Lionel Jospin also called, in his pledge for mastered globalisation before the Economic and Social Council in Paris, on the donor countries to commit to reduce poverty by 50 per cent until 2015. The French premier urges rich countries to make this pledge at the Monterrey conference (Mexico), in March, on financing development.
For Mr Jospin, solutions like the Tobin tax on capital movement, the tax on weapon sales, and the CO2 tax can only have an effect at medium term, and for the short term the International Monetary Fund must act in order to help the developing countries.
The debate on globalisation is set to be kicked off in the EU with the presentation of the report on globalisation by the European Commission, on 13 February. The ministers of finance of the EU countries last fall commissioned the European Commission to prepare a study on globalisation and the utility of a Tobin tax on the movement of capitals.
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