Optimización de los Recursos del Estado

On the eve of completion of the single market, coinciding with the establishment of the European Economic Area and closely following the unification of Germany and the break-up of the Soviet Union, the European Parliament considered the future consequences

374 _{This was the financial instrument of the integrated ‘raw materials’ programme devised within UNCTAD; the United States and}

of the new situation on North-South relations375_{. On a global level, international relations}

had become multipolar and structured around three axes (the European Community, United States and Japan)376_{. In this context, the features of the sub-system of developing}

countries were an intensification of regional relations, greater ethnocentrism and the formation of regional military powers, often ruled by dictatorial regimes. In this situation, the European Community, which was expanding to include the whole continent, could launch its own initiative, no longer North-South but East-West-South.

From an economic viewpoint, the developing countries were faced with this situation: the goal whereby the industrialised countries would allocate 0.7% of their gross domestic product to developing countries had not been achieved. Eastern European countries were receiving 1% of the GDP of the 24 countries that were supporting them. Private investments were flowing away from the developing countries, and transfers of these investments towards the Northern hemisphere for debt servicing were equivalent to the aid being given to the Eastern European countries. The resolution, however, held that the real risk for developing countries was in essence the formation of large regional blocs from which they were excluded. To overcome this, the resolution suggested that:

...the new model for cooperation should adopt a globalist approach, dissociating aid from bilateral political or economic interests and eliminating military types of aid, ending the demands made by international financial institutions where these impose an actual limit on development.

It therefore called upon the Commission, the Council, the countries of Eastern Europe and those of the former Soviet Union to consider a coordinated cooperation strategy.

On the specific problem of debt, the resolution stressed Parliament’s concern at the tensions generated on the international capital markets by the commitment to the Eastern European countries and to the reconstruction of countries having suffered from the Gulf war377_.

These tensions could have adverse repercussions on indebtedness, and the resolution therefore called for broader cooperation to tackle the overall situation of transfers to the East and South.

The question closest to the hearts of the developing countries, however, was the opening up of markets in the North to their products. Here again, competition was starting up between the developing countries and the Eastern European countries, which were now eligible for the generalised preferences system and were parties to association agreements. Given the situation that was being created, there was a need to consider in greater depth the mechanisms of access to the preferential tariffs system and to increase the ceilings and limits on the amounts of the preferences granted to the Eastern European countries. As already demonstrated in other resolutions, Parliament was conscious of the effects of military spending on development, both by developing countries and by the industrialised countries. In the former, military spending was generally equivalent to or even higher

375 _{EP resolution of 14 May 1992 on Changes in East-West relations and the North-South relationship: role of the Community and}

the Twelve, OJ C 150, 15.6.1992, p. 236, following on from the report of the Committee on Development... with the same title. Doc. A3-392/91. Rap: Bindi.

376 _{The reader should bear in mind that the situation described here is the one that existed in the early 1990s, as seen at the time.} 377 _{The first war, in 1990-91, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.}

than expenditure on health and education, diminishing the resources targeted towards growth; in the latter countries, one tenth of their military spending would make it possible to double development aid. Among the other measures put forward by the resolution was a call for donor countries to distinguish between development aid and military aid, to restrict the sale of weapons and to reduce their cooperation with countries whose military spending exceeded their social spending. Another measure suggested was for the United Nations to maintain a register of arms sales.

Based on the observation that the rise in poverty and social inequality was evidence of the failure of the cooperation policies adopted up to then, the resolution called for a new policy for the sector: one that was more democratic and egalitarian on an economic level. This would be part of a new world order for which Europe should act as a catalyst, establishing itself as a guarantor of human and economic rights within the international institutions. The new world order, moreover, opened up the prospect of a new configuration of the UN, which would see the European Community and the developing countries sitting on the Security Council.

The resolution also touched on the problem of immigration into the Community from the South and the East. In deploring xenophobia and racism, it stated that

...The Community must find a democratic solution for all those who have been forced by hunger, civil war and nationalism to abandon their country, defining positive measures to solve the problems, created by immigration, of undeclared labour and working conditions without contracts or social security.