The struggle for commerce, wealth and strategic resources of Latin America and the Caribbean are disputed amongst the Asian, European and North American blocks.  While the United States attempts to annex the continent for its interests through the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the so-called old continent is also attempting to do the same with the Free Trade Area with the European Union.  If it cannot be done as a block, then in pieces, as the United States is doing.  That is, the European Union is consolidating free trade agreements with Mexico, Chile and the regional market with the Southern Cone, Mercosur (Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina), as well as with the Andean Community of Nations (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and Columbia), with Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras) and the Caribbean (Haiti, the Dominican Republic).  For its part, the United States has done the same with Mexico and Chile, and is in the process of free trade agreements with Central America and the Dominican Republic, and the conformation of the Puebla-Panama Plan among other processes of regional integration.  In this way, between the United States and the European Union, the people are resisting the resurgence of a new colonial phase on one hand, and by decadent imperialism on the other.

The themes of poverty and migration; human rights, the right to health and education, to self-determination, to a job and worthy salaries, to sustainable development, to equity, to the promotion of women, to the conservation of the environment, etc., become part of the political discourse to concentrate on the objectives in opening the markets to large companies, eliminate tariffs, privatize the wealth and companies of the people administrated by governments and legislated in favor of the huge corporations in order to give a guarantee and total security to their investments such that current and future governments cannot impede them.  Petroleum, gas, water, banks, genetic material, wood, electric energy, fish, infrastructure, minerals, among others, are all sources of capital.

It all began in 1999 when at the First Summit of Chiefs of State of the European Union/Latin America and the Caribbean in Brazil.  Then the Second Summit took place in Madrid, Spain, in 2002 with the motto “EU-Latin America and the Caribbean: Creating a New Partnership for a New Century.”  Now the Third Summit will take place in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, on May 28th and 29th, 2004.  The participation of 58 chiefs of state is expected, with 33 from Latin America and 25 from the European Union.  From Latin America and the Caribbean Antigua and Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela will participate.  Europe includes Cuba, although the United States and Canada do not.  Together, these countries have a total population of more than 530 million inhabitants.  For its part, from the European Union, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Greece, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom will participate, as well as countries that will become part of the European Union on May 1st, 2004: Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, and the Czech Republic.  The EU together has 450 million inhabitants.

In the first Brazilian Summit, the governments noted in their Declaration that “This strategic association is sustained in full respect to the international rights and in the goals and principles contained in the United Nations Letter; the principles of non-intervention, respect for sovereignty, equality among States and self-determination constitute the base of the relationship between our regions.”  They also assured that they would commit to “strengthening an education for peace in all countries and reject all forms of intolerance, including xenophobia and racism, to the benefit of international and regional security, as well as national development, as well as promote and protect the rights of the most vulnerable groups in society, especially children, youth, the handicapped, the displaced and migrant workers and their families.”  Nonetheless, some of the European countries participate in the cruelest of wars with the United States, such as the invasion of Iraq, and in grave human rights violations.

Nonetheless, the central objective is somewhere else.  From the beginning and before the advance of the United States on the Continent, in the First Summit the governments committed to “stimulate international economic cooperation to promote the integral liberalization and mutual benefit of trade, as a way to increase prosperity and combat the destabilizing effects of the volatility of financial flows” and “emphasize the importance of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the principal forum to foment the liberalization of trade and the establishment of the basic rules and directorates for the international trade system (…) without the exclusion of any sector, directed to reducing trade barriers, both tax-based and otherwise, to commercial goods and services.”

For that, the International Financial Institutions (IFI’s) will play a key role.  That is to say, the multilateral banks.  The First Summit stated that they would commit to “foment dialogue and stimulate a favorable climate for the financial flows and the productive investment between Latin American and the Caribbean and the European Union, in particular the promotion of joint investments through the European Investment Bank (EIB) as well as other cooperation instruments, like the promotion of bilateral agreements of reciprocal investment protection.”  They invited the EIB to “consider the possibility of reinforcing and extending its activities in Latin America and the Caribbean and stimulating the co-financing between European financial institutions and those of Latin America and the Caribbean.”  For this, it is also necessary to “promote a bi-regional program of governmental and business training for the encouragement of competition in businesses and the negotiating capacity of the businessmen, as well as for the search for effective solutions as regards the facilitation of business.”  In the Second Summit in Madrid they invited “the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) to present initiatives and inform bioregional mechanisms.”  So, the central idea is to strengthen the international financial system also through the purchase of banks in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In Madrid they were the most compelling: “We reiterate our conviction that the promotion of direct investments constitutes a fundamental objective of the relationship between the two regions and, therefore, we agree to stimulate development of initiatives destined to increase the international flow of investments between our two regions (…) they should be especially centered on (…) the integration of regional infrastructures in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as stimulate trade flows between the EU-LAC.  To achieve this objective, both regions need to cooperate closely with the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Caribbean Development Bank (Caribank), the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and other regional banks.”

The Mechanisms that Impoverish

Among the elements key to understanding the penetration of the EU in the Continent and in general of all so-called free trade agreements there are, among others:

1) Subsidies: the rich countries of the north demand that the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean eliminate subsidies of all products, even as the developed countries increase them, currently earmarking an average of one billion dollars daily to their economies.  With this, they lower their costs and eliminate all exterior competition.

2) Tariffs: they demand that poor and developing countries open their borders to goods and services without the country charging taxes, even as they maintain their taxes.  With this, governments of developing countries cease to collect income, which obliges them to raise taxes of the population, indebt themselves in exchange for more conditions, cut public spending and/or sell more public companies to obtain the resources that transnationals do not pay anymore.

3) National Treatment: that is, the company demands that it not receive a deal less favorable from the government than that which national companies receive (aid, subsidies, promotion, contracts, special regulations or laws, etc.)  They ask for “equal” treatment when you cannot compare an indigenous or peasant producer with a transnational seed company that also receives millions of Euros in subsidies from its own country.  The “national treatment” does not make all participants equal, but makes the differences more profound.

4) Privatizations: they demand that the governments privatize all their services, goods or companies or the corporations can demand the governments in an international tribunal independently of national laws.  Meanwhile, they maintain companies in the hands of the State without privatization, such as Electricity of France.  In the year 2000, of the 500 largest companies in Latin America and the Caribbean, 46.6% already belonged to foreign companies.  In 2002, 35 large state corporations were sold in the region, of which 15 were bought with European capital.

5) Import Quotas: they demand that in a certain period of time the European transnationals achieve exportation to sell in Latin America and the Caribbean any and all goods or services without a limit in quantity; while European countries place restrictions on certain products that come from the exterior to create competition between those companies and local production.  In the year 2002, all the region of Latin America and the Caribbean exported in millions of dollars the equivalent of one member of the EU: France.  Between 1990 and 2000, the EU increased its exportation to the region by 222%, while that of Latin America and the Caribbean only increased by 80%

6) Legislative Modification: they demand that governments adapt their constitutions and local laws to the rules that were established by trade agreements, passing over the sovereignty of nations. It also includes that guarantee that no government can legislate in favor of the expropriation of foreign companies as occurred after the independence of the colonies in all Latin America and the Caribbean, or to companies after revolutionary processes in the Continent.  They will also not be permitted to legislate in defense of the environment or public health if this affects the profits of European companies.  Cintia Angulo, director in Mexico of Electricité de France, declared when faced with the illegality of the French investments in electricity in Mexico that the issue is simple: “if we are acting illegally or unconstitutionally, then make our contracts legal and constitutional.”

7) Professional Services: allow the companies to transfer skilled European labor to the region, increasing its unemployment.  While qualified personnel can migrate from the north to the south with the advantages that are supplied with the legislative changes in migration policy for them and their families, the families of the south find themselves with barriers from migrating north in search of work.  Some human migrants are legal and others are illegal in the neoliberal market.

8) Free Flow of Capital: this implies repatriation of profits that companies obtain in Latin America and the Caribbean without any restriction or control by the governments.  For this it helps to buy the banking system of the countries in the region.  Nonetheless the migrants have to pay up to 20% to send money from the north to send south from the United States to sustain their families.  At the same time, these remittances from the poor are what finance their governments.

 EUROPEAN TRANSATIONALS IN LATIN AMERICA

The European transnational corporations represent half of the principal world companies.  In Latin American and the Caribbean they have acquired the banks (BBVA, Santander, HSBC, etc.  Currently 90% of the Mexican banking system is in foreign hands.); electric energy (Union Fenosa, Endesa, Iberdrola, Electricite de France and Totalfinaelf of France, United Utilities and National Grid of Great Britain); petroleum (Repsol, Shell, British Petroleum); natural gas; water (Vivendi, Suez, Veolia exVivendi of France, Rwe Germany, United Utilities of Great Britain, Aguas de Barcelona, Aguas de Valencia, Anglian Water); telecommunications (Telefonica, Telecom Italy and France Telecom), etc.  Many of these companies were colluding in acts of corruption in the privatizations and in violation of human rights.  They promised to improve the quality of services and lower costs.  Today, in Latin America and the Caribbean 200 million people lack potable water.  The services are terrible and the prices of electric energy and water have risen.  Poverty and unemployment have risen and infrastructure investments have generated massive displacements of the population, including strong confrontations and violence including gas pipelines, dams, highways, etc.  Nonetheless, in the First Summit the governments committed to “promote and protect the rights of indigenous populations, including their right to participate in terms of equality and enjoyment of the opportunities and benefits of political, economic and social development, with total respect for their identities, cultures and traditions.”

So, during the last ten years the European companies in the region have grown up to 300% in their investments once governments initiated massive privatizations.  Their governments provided funds to the IADB, CABEI and CAF which allows them to have priority in sales and bidding for government contracts.  They have gotten rich by lowering investment costs and promoting that the governments increase their public debt; or repatriating to the maximum their profits including when the situations become difficult.  Meanwhile, Latin American and the Caribbean are convulsing in violence and hunger.  The General Strike in the Dominican Republic against the policies of the IMF, and the protests without precedent in Honduras against dams, the looting of wood and the presence of the United States army have provoked on balance injured, dead and imprisoned.  Colombia debates systematic violence while Argentina is submerged in the worst neoliberal economic crisis and the plans of three large military bases in its territory.  In Guatemala the persecution of opposition leaders continues while in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador the indigenous movement is being strongly repressed.  In Haiti there was a coup d’etat and the United States invaded the island on time to undo a strong pressure against the governments of Cuba and Venezuela.

The German company Continental closes its Euzkadi tire factories in Jalisco, Mexico, without respecting labor rights, while Volkswagen fires its workers and other maquiladoras migrate to China.  In Chile, the European transnationals achieved the approval of the Ralco dam that will inundate great regions rich in biodiversity and for which indigenous communities were displaced.  In Bolivia, the Spanish company Repsol is pressuring to be allowed to monopolize the recently discovered gas deposits.  And in this way we could mention an infinite number of cases.

"LINKING ALTERNATIVES"

Due to the former, thousands of people are preparing to demonstrate against this anti-democratic and impoverishing process in the city of Guadalajara.  Against some agreements that privilege the commercialization of life and not development based on human rights.  It is due to this that many civil organizations call for the SOCIAL ENCOUNTER EUROPE/LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, simultaneous with the official encounter.  We reproduce their call here:

“The Third Summit is occurring in a moment in which Latin America faces a new offensive by the United States to impose its hegemony through a hemispheric agreement, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the proliferation of ‘free trade’ agreements, as well as pressure for military and political control.  At the same time, Latin America is experiencing the multiplication of economic agreements and investments by members of the European Union and in favor of its transnational companies.”

“The growing predominance of the transnational companies, the explosion of migration, growing unemployment, the debilitation of social security, the privatization of social services, the permanent burden of external debt, the desperate and unjust situation in rural areas, the lack of transparency and democracy, the violation of integral human rights, among others, are diverse expressions of the same global policy where democracy, sovereignty, social justice, economic relations and peace are called into play.  These are some of the themes of interest for a society faced with the official agenda.”

“What social and environmental impacts, both in the North and the South, will the agreements and investments of the European Union in Latin America have?  What specific impacts do the agreements have for women?  How can we break free of transnational blackmail?  What strategies of solidarity and cooperation can be constructed between the communities of America and Europe?  These are some of the questions we will tackle in the Social Encounter ‘Linking Alternatives’.”

“In this sense, the encounter has three specific objectives:

a) Review the implications of the contends that intend to bring ‘social cohesion’, a theme discussed by the mandates of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, demonstrating the lack of viability of the model that they propose and formulate proposals that permit us to meet with greater support and strength for the construction of peace, democracy, and an inclusive, just and sustainable development.

b) Analyze the forms in which we are organizing to confront the struggle from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and at the same time define diverse strategies that permit us to articulate ourselves from our own spaces to carry out conclusive advances that allow the voice, proposals and decisions of the excluded communities to be heard.

c) Carry out actions and mobilizations that make social inconformity visible as a public form of popular pressure.

We will change this date into an opportunity to advance the relationships and construction of alternatives of civil society from both regions.”

Signed: Guadalajara: Promotora "Otro mayo Guadalajara", Instituto Mexicano para el Desarrollo Comunitario (IMDEC), Sindicato Nacional Revolucionario de Trabajadores de la Cia. Hulera Euzkadi, S.A. (SNRTE), Colectivo Ecologista Jalisco (CEJ), Movimiento Humanista en Guadalajara, Departamento de Estudios Ibéricos y Latinoamericanos del Centro Universitario de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, UdeG (DEILA, CUCSH), Centro de Reflexión y Acción Laboral (CEREAL), Comunidades Religiosas Insertas en Medios Populares (CRIMPO). Mexico: Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), DECA-Equipo Pueblo, Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez (Centro Pro), Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME), Red Nacional Género y Economía (REDGE), Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres en México (MMM-M), Movimiento Ciudadano por la Democracia (MCD), Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo (ANEC), Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical (CILAS), Centro de Derechos Humanos Tepeyac del Istmo de Tehuantepec (CDHTT), Convergencia de Organismos Civiles por la Democracia (Convergencia), Comité Cancún Altermundista, Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas (CIEPAC), Asociación Nacional de Abogados Democráticos (ANAD), Colectivo Azul, Guardianes del Cerro de San Pedro, San Luis Potosí, Patronato Pro Defensa del Patrimonio Histórico y Cultural de Cerro de San Pedro A.C. Frente Indígena, Campesino y Popular, Coalición Pro Justicia en las Maquiladoras (CJM), Servicios para la Paz (Serapaz). Latin América and the Caribbean: Alianza Social Continental (ASC), Alianza Chilena por un Comercio Justo y Responsable (ACJR), Amigos de la Tierra (Uruguay), Red Brasileña por la Integración de los Pueblos (REBRIP), Jubileo Sur, Red Latinoamericana Mujeres Transformando la Economía, Foro de Participación Ciudadana (FOCO-Agentina), Plataforma Haitiana en Defensa de un Desarrollo Alternativo (PADPA), Red Colombiana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio y el ALCA (RECALCA), Centro para la Defensa del Consumidor (CDC-El Salvador). Europe: Colectivo de Organización de Francia del Encuentro de Guadalajara (Espace Marx, France Amérique Latine, Revista Volcan, Colectivo Calpa, Asociación France-Cuba, Asociación por un Contrato Mundial del Agua- ACME, CEDETIM); Iniciativa de Copenhague para América Central y México (CIFCA): Transnational Institute (TNI-Holanda), Centro Nacional de Cooperación al Desarrollo (CNCD), Comisión Justicia y Paz Francófona de Bélgica, FIAN-International, Fos, Kwia, Mani Tese, Novib, Oxfam-GB, Oxfam-Solidaridad; Asociación por la Tasación de las Transacciones especulativas para Apoyo al Ciudadano (ATTAC).

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