Martin Wolf made a cogent case for legalising cannabis in Monday’s Financial Times. When even the Telegraph agrees, you could be forgiven for thinking that the drug debate was over. But the media furore about cannabis that followed last week’s Police Foundation Report masks a more important debate. The real discussion needs to focus on failure of successive Governments to reduce the flow of hard drugs into the country.

The latest Government plan for a US style drugs Agency, (reported in Monday’s FT) is in danger of becoming another expensive white elephant. While the proposed co-operation between the Home Office, the Foreign Office, MI6 and the police is welcome, it fails to recognise that drugs cannot be tackled in isolation. We need to give up on the “war on drugs” that has dominated Western policy for ten years and replace it with a war on crime.

The current vogue for “joined-up” thinking in drug policy often attempts to join the wrong things. Drugs war rhetoric links heroin addicts in Bradford to kingpins in Bogota, needle-exchange programmes in Aldershot with crop spraying in Afghanistan. This American-led campaign to trace supply lines back to source has backfired. A 125 billion dollar jihad against drug production in Bolivia and Peru has reduced production by 40% in the last two years. But the US Government didn’t bank on production moving to Colombia. In the same period, Colombian production has risen by a third, prices have fallen – and more cocaine is entering the US than ever before.

In the meantime, developments will transform the face of the drugs industry – making coca plantations in South America redundant. Scientists predict that synthetic drugs could be produced at the point of sale. And as the Government sets up its Royal Commission on Genetically Modified Food, the underworld is looking forward to the prospect of GM Cocaine increasing potency and profit margins.

If we are serious about joined-up government, the link we need to make – that we haven’t made yet – is between drugs and asylum scams, small arms trafficking, kidnap for ransom and extortion rackets. It has now become clear that the groups who ship drugs across borders are the same criminal gangs that are responsible for the rest of organised crime. Albanian criminals operating in the Balkans aren’t fussy – coffee or cocaine – whatever offers the highest return for lowest risk at any given time.

The Government spends billions on tackling all these problems, but the whole is often less than the sum of its parts. Different groups of civil servants beaver away on different projects at opposite ends of Whitehall: there is the counter-terrorism policy department in the Foreign Office, the Immigration Directorate of the Home Office and the Serious Fraud Squad.

The same arbitrary divisions are mirrored in the European Union and United Nations.
Criminals often navigate the gaps between government departments and different national legal systems.

Criminals don’t have any respect for national borders. Neither should we. Heroin grown in Afghanistan travels via Kosovo into the Netherlands where it is divided into consignments bound for Britain, France and Spain. International co-operation between police forces is largely based on ad hoc relationships between individual policemen. And there is no guarantee that resources will be allocated to keep track of the chain. Complex operations often end in failure because some of our closest neighbours refuse to share intelligence. The problems don’t end there. Even if smugglers are caught red-handed, protracted and expensive court cases, and new obstacles posed by the EU data protection act mean that few criminals will be prosecuted.

What can we do? First, we need watertight international laws. European Union leaders made real progress on police co-operation at their summit in Tampere last year. But crime is a global problem that needs global solutions. The International Criminal Court that is being set up should be used to target drug barons as well as war criminals.

Secondly, we need to understand the new technologies that are producing new types of crime. The Internet makes credit card fraud easier and more lucrative. As more of our personal details are stored on-line, criminals will steal identities as well as deal in cocaine. The Government’s Foresight Crime Prevention Panel has recognised that criminals have already logged onto the latest technology. If Government agencies do not raise their game, the gulf between them and us will become unbridgeable.

Finally, we need “joined up” intelligence. Governments around the world need to get better at sharing intelligence with each other. But they don’t have all the answers. Companies operating in countries without a framework of law and order often have a good knowledge of the local scene. Governments need a forum to tap into the intelligence that slips through the official channels. The European Union’s June Summit on Organised Crime in Lisbon is a first tentative step towards getting business involved.

The war on drugs needs to be a war on organised crime. Over the last ten years, the Government have spent ever-greater sums on tackling drugs. But there have never been more drugs on the streets. While drug related crime soars, the pundits, columnists and pop stars are rehearsing the cannabis debates of the sixties. It’s time to clear the haze.

The Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator Keith Hellawell took part in The Foreign Policy Centre’s seminar: “After the Drugs War”: international challenges and solutions” on Thursday 6 April

For most of its history, the left has followed the philosophy of Proudhon, regarding property as theft. Not quite literally, perhaps – the examples of toothbrushes or shoes will convince almost anybody that some form of private property is necessary – but the left has been preoccupied largely with restricting or constraining individual property ownership, if not actually abolishing it. The idea that property ownership has positive social value has been left entirely to the right. Until now, that is.

Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto, a 59-year-old Peruvian economist and former adviser to the Peruvian president. But his new book, The Mystery of Capital: why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else (published by Bantam on 7 September), has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age, alongside such figures as Anthony Giddens and Amartya Sen. Geoff Mulgan, the Downing Street policy adviser who was a founder of the Demos think-tank, describes de Soto as “a genuinely radical thinker”.

The basis of de Soto’s thinking is that property ownership is the key to ending poverty – but that it will work only if the poor can use their property to generate further wealth. Capitalism, he argues, has not failed outside the west for any of the reasons usually given: cultural differences, lack of enterprise, religion, fecklessness or laziness. On the contrary, the developing world buzzes with hard work, entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity. As a result, the poor are not really poor at all. They own trillions of pounds worth of assets. “In former communist countries and developing countries,” de Soto explained to me recently, from his home in Peru, “most property is in the hands of the oppressed and the labourers. There is no clear distinction between those who own property and those who provide labour.”

So what’s the problem? It is, according to de Soto, that these assets – houses, land or businesses – are part of what we would call the black economy. They lie outside the established legal framework of enforceable property rights and are, therefore, useless for generating further wealth. In the west, a house is not just somewhere to live, with four walls and a roof; it also has a parallel existence as a producer of capital which we can use to secure credit. In the developing world, because property rights are not adequately documented, assets cannot be traded outside local circles where people know and trust each other, cannot be used as collateral for a loan, cannot be offered as a share against an investment. It is, in de Soto’s terminology, “dead” rather than “live” capital. “The lifeblood of capitalism,” says de Soto, “is not the internet or fast-food franchises. It is capital. Only 25 of the world’s 200 countries produce capital in sufficient quantities to benefit from the division of labour in expanded global markets.”

As industries and cities grew in the west, countries such as Britain and the United States drew all their property rights, formal and informal, into a single legal system. This allowed them to participate in an expanded market, made their assets transferable and fungible, accelerated specialisation and division of labour, and allowed them to benefit from economies of scale. Now, although the developing world has also undergone industrial revolution and mass urbanisation, it has not developed the legal frameworks.

So the secret of development is not to get more aid from the west – it is to introduce policies that can unlock the hidden wealth that already exists. De Soto and his associates have spent the past decade working with governments in Peru, Egypt, the Philippines and Haiti, trying to measure the extent of the problem and devising ways to formalise their economies. The tangle of bureaucracy in these countries stacks the odds against entering the formal economy. It would take someone almost a year, working full-time, to complete the paperwork to set up a one-man sewing business in Peru (and the legal costs would be 31 times the monthly minimum wage). And it would take five years of bureaucratic wrangling, including 77 administrative steps in 31 government offices, to get legal authorisation to build a house in Egypt. No wonder that most people build their houses or start their businesses outside the legal system. As de Soto points out, westerners regard the extralegal world as a place for gangsters, “sinister characters of interest only to the police, anthropologists and missionaries”. But, “in the third world, it is legality that is marginal”.

De Soto estimates that, in countries such as Peru and Egypt, the assets of eight out of ten people are excluded from the formal economy. And the value of extralegal property does not just exceed legal property, it dwarfs foreign aid and investment, too: in Egypt, it is worth 55 times as much as all investment ever recorded (including the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam); in Haiti, it is worth 150 times all investment. De Soto estimates that the value of real estate held, but not legally owned, by the poor of the developing world and former communist nations is £6.3 trillion: 20 times as much as all foreign direct investment since 1989, 46 times as much as all World Bank and IMF loans to developing countries, and almost as much as the total value of all the companies listed on the main stock exchanges of the world’s 20 most developed countries, including those in New York, Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, Toronto, Paris and Milan.

De Soto argues: “Democracy is at the heart of the issue. Democracy saved capitalism in the west by providing incentives to make it more humane and more inclusive.” In developing countries, he argues, because of the lack of democratic feedback, governments have not understood that there are considerable assets which 90 per cent of the public own, but which need to be formalised with new legal frameworks.

His thinking has implications for the west as well as for the developing world. For example, the internet is a new frontier in the same way as America’s “Wild West” was for pioneers in the 19th century, when dozens of different legal frameworks needed to be brought together. “How many software innovations would Bill Gates have made without patents to protect them?” asks de Soto. “How many deals and long-term projects could he have turned out without enforceable contracts? How many risks could he have taken at the beginning without limited liability and insurance policies?” The debate about protecting intellectual property internationally will demand exactly the sort of legal frameworks that de Soto is talking about.

Ownership is also crucial to the entrepreneurship that the Department for Trade and Industry has been urging us to embrace. The most important source of funds for new businesses in America is a mortgage on the entrepreneur’s house. Prophets of the new economy, such as Charles Leadbeater, have argued for employee share ownership. De Soto identifies with these schemes: “The popularisation of capitalism with stock options is a further stage of what I am talking about, responding to the concern that capitalism will only work if it is inclusive – the idea of passing ownership from an elite to the people.”

Then there are those at the bottom of the pile in the west. This is where de Soto’s ideas excite Geoff Mulgan, who was instrumental in setting up the government’s Social Exclusion Unit. He explains: “The left always tended to underestimate the importance of ownership, and how hard it is for a democracy that does not have widespread ownership of assets to be truly democratic. De Soto’s central insight is that to escape from poverty you need assets – assets which you can put to work. There is a good deal of historical evidence on his side, as well as abundant contemporary evidence, that ownership tends to encourage self-esteem and healthy habits of behaviour, such as acting more for the long term, or taking education more seriously.”

It is estimated that the black or informal economy accounts for between 3 and 7 per cent of British GDP. In areas such as Merseyside, industrial decline in the early 1980s led to a sudden contraction in the formal economy; a big cash economy arose in its place, covering everything from plumbing and building to drugs and organised crime. Mulgan thinks that we should learn from de Soto’s principles: “The informal economy does have some virtues – it is highly entrepreneurial and creates wealth of a sort. But there are strong reasons for wanting to bring as much informal activity as possible into the formal economy – to cut the links with organised crime, to reduce benefit fraud, tax evasion, dependence on loan sharks and so on. Britain is a very different economy from Peru. But de Soto is right about the need to create pathways that encourage people to go legitimate, with a judicious combination of sticks to signal that you won’t tolerate evasion and fraud, and carrots so that people aren’t pushed even further away from the legitimate economy.”

As de Soto points out, private property in Britain was born with the enclosures movement. This is why the British associate property with oppression and exclusion of the poor. Since the decision to rewrite Clause Four and to abandon calls for collective ownership of industry, Labour has simply ignored the whole question of property and ownership.

But grappling with the dynamic qualities of property can open up an entirely new front in the debate between left and right. Anthony Eden was the first to talk about creating a “property-owning democracy”, and property became even more difficult territory for the left when Margaret Thatcher seized upon this phrase to justify her “right-to-buy” schemes and her cut-price sell-offs of national utilities.

It is a measure of how much these matters have become the preserve of the right that, when de Soto’s publishers wanted an endorsement for his book, it was to Thatcher they turned (although whether she actually read it is another matter). De Soto thinks it is time to reverse all this and recast property as something that can empower the poor. Maybe his book will be the turning point.

When it comes to asylum seekers, the right have always had the best tunes. The send em’ all home brigade in Smith Square are again drafting draconian policies to woo middle England. Tory strategists believe that on past form, their plans to lock up all immigrants in army barracks for six weeks will deliver an electoral revival.

But the Tories have claimed victory by default on asylum. They have only won in the past because progressive opinion has opted out of the debate. The knee-jerk reaction amongst liberals has been to condemn inflammatory language without answering the vexed question of how we deal with the huge increase in asylum applications. Now the left has finally realised that it needs persuasive policies to counter prison-camp rhetoric.

Immigration is always emotive and has real resonance in Labour’s heartlands. But however much people complain about it, it isn’t one of the bread-and-butter issues that will decide the Blair government’s fate.

Monthly polls organised by Mori show that only 4% of voters think it is the most important political issue. With political leadership it should be possible to win in asylum, but Labour urgently needs a clear intellectual case. First, they must resist the knee-jerk reaction against foreigners. The current climate treats all newcomers – economic migrant or aylum, bogus or legitimate – as a problem. A new breed of politicians never tire of celebrating multicultural Britain, yet in the same breath they refer to new refugees as a “burden”.

This confusion – mixing up asylum and immigration and failing to develop a coherent approach to either – doesn’t just betray our human rights and our history of global links. It fails to see that getting immigration right is vital to our success in the global knowledge economy.

On asylum, the xenophobic right must be prevented from hijacking our history. Our long tradition of providing refuge for the persecuted is often conveniently airbrushed out. Britain’s protection of the Huguenots persecuted by Louis XIV should be invoked by speech writers as often as the Battle of Britain. The Conservatives’ attacks on asylum seekers can be easily resisted by glancing at the biographies of the upper echelons of the party. It’s not just that Michael Portillo would not be in Britain today if Anne Widdecombe’s policies had been adopted in the 1930s – Nigel Lawson, Leon Brittan and Keith Joseph would never have made it either.

Support for accepting genuine asylum seekers is undermined by a shambolic system which takes 13 months to process an average claim. Last year, Britain had 53% more asylum applications than in 1998 and now receives more than Germany. Numbers have increased tenfold in a decade – from 4, 000 in 1989 to 46, 000 in 1998 – not because Britain is a “soft touch” but because of the fall-out of the end of the cold war. Britain has to fulfil its obligations under international treaties, but there is a limit to the number that can be absorbed. The Government should make a clear commitment every three years to on the maximum number of asylum seekers – in the absence of a major catastrophe that might require negotiation. As the Prime Minister argues: “unless reasonable and tolerant people” deal with abuses in the system, the unreasonable and intolerant will take control.

On immigration, we need to be guided by hardheaded economic analysis rather than the mental hangover of an ethnic colour bar. It is ironic that tabloid furore has reached fever pitch at the same time as forecasters are calling for an increase in skilled immigrant labour.

Economists and demographers are predicting a fiercely competitive international market for the best-educated migrants. Europe will struggle to support its pensioners as life spans stretch and birth rates slow. A dwindling band of young workers will have to pay for the pensions and healthcare of their parents and grandparents. Countries may be forced to offer cash incentives to import young wealth creators from Asia and the third world.

Immigrants have a proven track record of creating wealth wherever they go – and it isn’t all down to hard work. Global markets have a constant thirst for new ideas, new products, new recipes, new ways of doing things. Immigrants shake-up vested interests, take on bloated corporations and bring about new working practices.

But our negative stereotypes of immigrants stop us from harnessing their potential. The tabloid assumption that they sign on the dole within hours of touchdown is replicated by official structures. Asylum seekers are not allowed to enter the labour market while their case is being investigated and the only advice they receive is how to access the social security network. Yet hard-working migrants in search of a better life haven’t come here to live on a sink estate on £40 a week. Gordon Brown could think about a new deal for immigrants with language training, work experience and advice on setting up a business.

The Chancellor claims that 1m jobs are left vacant in the UK. But there has been no attempt to identify where the skill shortages lie. The Department of Trade and Industry could also carry out a national skills audit to find out whom we need and where we need them. We should allow a limited number economic migrants based on proof of their skills. Canada has created a points system that scores would-be migrants according to their skills and qualifications. Every year 100, 000 asylum seekers disappear from the radar screens during the protracted claims process. Most are working as cleaners, waiters and security guards. I have come across mini-cab drivers who are trained engineers, psychiatrists working as builders. We need a route to guide them back to the formal, taxed economy. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has suggested that immigrants could be guaranteed citizenship if they were willing to use their qualifications.

Other European countries are waking up to the advantages of outsiders. Gerhard Shroder has unveiled a Green Card Scheme – allowing up to 30, 000 IT specialists and from European countries outside the EU without the bureaucratic nightmares. The US has been doing this for years. Cricket is now one of the fastest growing sports in Silicon Valley as Indian programmers set up local teams.

Labour won’t win if it tries to out-Widdecombe the Tories. But it can show that the Tories’ attempts to wrap themselves in the flag betray this country’s history and store up economic problems for the future. Labour’s attempt to redefine Britishness will amount to nothing if it fails to inject some sanity into the asylum debate .

NOTHING is for ever. Progressive ideas that are right, bright and appropriate at one historical moment can, in time, fade and decay or become defensive in the face of further progress. I believe this is what is happening to policies promoting British multiculturalism today. We urgently need ties that bind – and multiculturalism isn’t delivering them. It risks building barriers between the different tribes that make up Britain today, rather than helping to create a new shared sense of Britishness.
Few would deny there has been progress on race relations in recent years, but racism continues to blight many lives. I feel profoundly British, but experience has taught me to put a bucket of water under the letterbox when I go to bed and, just last week, a London cabbie refused to let me into his taxi because of the colour of my skin. I have fought against racism for three decades, and will always support uncompromising action against overt and hidden discrimination. However, our multicultural policies, with the emphasis on ethnic monitoring and on special provision for black and Asian communities seem increasingly divisive and irrelevant to a new generation of young people, and are out of touch with the way our world has moved on.
We do not have the optimistic and integrated society we all hoped for. It is not just Scottish and Welsh nationalism that threaten British identity. In these post-devolutionary times, multiculturalism is pitting all communities against each other. People who used to think of themselves as black are now retreating into tribal identities – demanding attention and resources for their particular patch. White people have no stake in multiculturalism, either – it is seen as something that black people do. The English are understandably disgruntled that their ethnicity is denied while all other identities – Welsh, Scottish, Hindu, Caribbean and the rest – are celebrated. Young white kids celebrate Diwali in schools without any sense of how it links to their own identity.
The cloak of multiculturalism has been worn by those with no interest in integration. Treating black people differently has enabled white institutions to carry on as if nothing substantive has changed since the arrival of the Windrush from the West Indies. As long as “ethnic minorities” were given some money and space to play marbles in the ghetto, nothing else needed to happen. Whether you look at the BBC or the top FTSE companies, the multicultural answer has failed to transform anything very much. Talking to the teenagers who have grown up with multiculturalism, I found that many young people – black, Asian, white and mixed race – are impatient with the whole ideology. They reject the traditional categories which multiculturalism tries to shoehorn them into.
Their notions of diversity go way beyond a love of curry. Although most feel connected to the values of their parents to some extent, their identities are changing in unpredictable ways. Young white men absorbing urban black ways of life (Ali G is really out there), and young Asian girls refusing forced marriages, show how cultures cannot remain static or settled whatever purists may wish. A young black man said, simply: “I think this kind of thinking is for sad old people.” A young Asian man was equally scathing: “Multiculturalism is a boring word. It is grey and small and domestic. It does not include Europeans. It does not include internationalism. It is like an old cardigan knitted out of different coloured scraps of wool.”
Others felt that multiculturalism merely has pernicious effects. Some community leaders use it to justify human rights abuses in their own backyard. Police and social workers are often reluctant to intervene where they suspect domestic violence, in case they are accused of racism. An Asian girl I interviewed said she was “treated like a Paki” both by white people and by her own family who forced her to marry a man who then repeatedly raped her. She said: “Their multiculturalism is just a cover. Some Asians use this to hide what they are doing to the girls in the community. Leaders and politicians let them get away with it.” So, whose multiculturalism is it, anyway?
The out-of-date term “ethnic minorities” is an obstacle to integration. It is based on the ludicrous assumption that there was once a large, homogeneous, white “majority” surrounded by “ethnic minorities” who were just too strange for words. These measures are even less defensible in a complex, diverse society grappling with devolution, globalisation and integration into Europe, American domination, collapsing values and fragmentation at every level.
My criticisms – which are outlined in After Multiculturalism, published this week – have nothing in common with the views of those who resent these policies because they regard this as a white Christian country that must resist diversity. More than ever we need a national conversation about our collective identity. We need to concentrate our energies on the ties that bind us and use this to create a new British identity. Diversity is an inescapable condition of modern life and respect for this is essential. That respect will have to apply to everyone, black and white. But respect for different ways of life cannot be allowed to destroy any sense that we live in the same country.
Once multiculturalism has been laid to rest, we can concentrate on developing a strong, diverse British identity rather than retreating into ever-smaller tribes.

The Foreign Policy Centre’s research into public opinion on the Euro in Denmark and Britain shows that British pro-Europeans need to win the political as well as the economic arguments.

Although the political landscape in Denmark is very different – with a different set of arguments against the Euro and much greater distrust of politicians – the tactical mistakes that put the Danish vote on a knife-edge could be similarly damaging for the pro-Euro campaign here.

DENMARK AND BRITAIN:
Similarities and Differences in the Euro debate.

Public trust in politicians who support the single currency is lower in Denmark than in Britain.
Even after the fuel crisis, Tony Blair scores much higher trust ratings than the Pro-Euro Danish Prime-Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. Only 8% of the electorate expressed “a lot of trust” in Rasmussen following his failure to implement a manifesto pledge to lower the age of retirement. (The “efterlon”)

Disastrous Timing
The Danish referendum campaign coincided with all-time lows in the value of the Euro against the dollar. It was also called two years into Rasmussen’s leadership, when the Government were suffering from mid-term blues.

Danish Economic Argument Was Not Convincing :
As the Krone is already pegged at a fixed rate to the Euro, it was difficult to persuade voters that full membership of the Euro would make any positive difference to them. Indifference was heightened when a commission of “Three Wise Men” concluded that the impact of the Euro would be marginal. In August nearly half of voters (48%) felt that the Euro would neither result in economic benefits or losses.

Few Floating Voters:
Less than half as many voters are open to persuasion on the Euro in Denmark than Britain. Danish public opinion has been hardened by a series of six referenda on European Questions, leaving few floating voters. In August this year, six weeks before the referendum on the Euro, 13% of the electorate didn’t know how they would vote. Six weeks before the Referendum on the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1998, 25% declared themselves undecided. Amongst Yes and No voters this time only 19% said there was a chance that they would change their minds. This contrasts with Britain where 45% of voters admit that they are open to persuasion on the Euro.

Key Issues in Denmark do not translate to British debate :
Few of the issues aired during the Danish Referendum campaign have resonance in Britain. Many feared that Denmark’s generous welfare state could be jeopardised by EU tax harmonisation. Similarly, EU sanctions imposed on Austria following Haider’s inclusion in the Government resulted in widespread debate on the influence of small countries within the EU.

HOW TO WIN THE EURO REFERENDUM IN BRITAIN: LESSONS FROM DENMARK

Win the Political Argument on the Euro:

The Danish experience shows that trying to sidestep the sovereignty debate is a flawed strategy. Many voters believed in the economic benefits of the Euro but felt the political price was not worth paying. The Yes Campaign therefore has to make political arguments for joining the Euro – it cannot simply rely on presenting a list of potential economic benefits. It should argue that pooling sovereignty is the best way to maintain our influence within the EU: outside the Euro we will never punch our weight. This argument is already partly won: British public opinion is in favour of pooling sovereignty within the EU on the environment and defence

Concentrate on the Big Picture rather than Detail:

The Danish Yes Campaign were often ended up on a defensive footing – responding to scares stories about pensions and tax harmonisation – because they failed to set out a practical, non-federalist vision of the EU. A series of high profile speeches here by the Prime Minister could move the argument on from outdated fears of a federal super-state.

Don’t succumb to British versus EU posturing:

The understandable tendency of ministers to champion “Battles with Brussels” to prove that Britain is punching its weight in Europe can be counter-productive. Recent heroic interventions to “save the jammy dodger” from EU regulations may fuel Euroscepticism in the long run. Experience from Denmark should counsel against this strategy: Danish opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty on asylum, immigration, police co-operation and common defence were hailed as victories by the Government. But this rhetoric heightened the image of the EU as a threat.

Be Credible – Don’t use alarmist tactics:

Danish voters failed to believe those predicting that a no vote would result in economic doom. In Britain, voters will be similarly suspicious of exaggerated claims, particularly if the economy continues to thrive. Pro-Europeans will need to point to the positive results in terms of jobs, investment, mortgages and political influence that joining a successful single currency would bring to Britain as well as the negative consequences of staying out.

Only focus on issues where Europe can add value

The pro-European case should focus on issues like the single market’s impact on jobs – not on areas where national Governments could successfully act alone. There is a tendency to indiscriminately deploy any pro-European arguments that are in line with public opinion, trumpeting shorter working hours and parental leave as EU achievements, even though there is no logical reason why a British Government could not legislate for these itself.

Don’t rely on business to convert waverers:

Although a significant majority of business was in favour of the Euro, the scepticism of high profile bankers gave the impression to voters in Denmark that business opinion was split.

Run a campaign that appeals to women:

The Danish referendum campaign conspicuously lacked pro-European figures that would appeal to women. The Yes Campaign failed to narrow the far higher levels of scepticism amongst women than men – a trend mirrored in Britain. 48% of Danish women opposed the Euro compared to 37% of men in a recent opinion poll.

Don’t preach to the converted:

Yes Campaigners in Denmark spent a disproportionate amount of time campaigning amongst the business elite who were already broadly in favour of the Euro.

“Denmark shows that “Its the politics, stupid”. Of course people care about jobs and mortgages but they still won’t vote for the Euro if we don’t win the argument on sovereignty too. We have to point out the consequences of being sidelined in Europe”, says Mark Leonard, Director of The Foreign Policy Centre.

Sources and Data:

(a)8% trust in Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Gallup, nr24 1998. By January 2000 Rasmussen was still languishing behind Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Bendt Bendsten in the polls. Source: Gallup Denmark: Telephone interview between 18-21/1/2000.

(b). Unconvincing Economic argument: the “Three Wise Men” were all chairmen of Danish Economic Council (www.dors.dk)

(c) Economic argument not convincing: Gallup poll based on telephone interviews with 1010 voters, selected representatively from 10/8 to 20/8. They were asked “ If Denmark decides to join the Euro, do you think it will generate economic benefits or losses, or that it will have no effect at all? ”

(d). Source: Gallup Denmark, nr5, 1998 and Gallup Denmark nr13b, 2000.

(e). Undecided voters: Gallup poll based on telephone interviews with 1010 voters selected representatively from 10/8/2000 to 20/8/2000. The question for those declaring in favour or against the Euro. Would you say that you have reached a conclusive decision with respect to the Euro, or is there any chance you may still chance that you may still change your mind”.

(f). Source: MORI, June 2000: Yes and No voters were asked if they would change their voting intention if they thought it would be good for the British Economy.

(g) The big picture: A vision for a non-federalist EU is set out in Mark Leonard’s pamphlet: Network Europe, (Foreign Policy Centre, 1999)

(h) Prime Minister should lead public debate: The Prime Minister is delivering a speech on the future of the European Union in Warsaw on Friday 6 October.

(i) Women’s vote: 27% of women would vote in favour of a single currency compared to 35% of men. Source: MORI September 2000. They were asked the question: “If the Government were to strongly urge that Britain should be part of a single European currency, how would you vote?”

(j)Gallup Denmark poll: telephone interviews with 1010 voters, selected representatively, from 10.8 to 20.8 2000. Core Question: “What would you vote, if there was a referendum on Denmark’s participation in the common European currency tomorrow?”

This briefing forms part of The Foreign Policy Centre’s European Programme , examining ways to reconnect the European Union to its citizens.

Research by Mark Leonard, Director of the Foreign Policy Centre, and Mariell Juhlin, a researcher on Scandinavian politics and economics.

More on British public opinion and the Euro can be found in Professor Robert Worcester’s pamphlet: How To Win The Euro Referendum published by the Foreign Policy Centre (2000). An outline of a new pro-European and non-federalist vision of the future of the European Union, see Mark Leonard’s Network Europe (The Foreign Policy Centre, 1999). See Reports .

The Context for the Seminar

Two years ago, newspapers were confidently predicting that the end of the anti-globalisation movement was not far away. But on the contrary, their presence has been felt at subsequent international meetings, and the movement as a whole seems to be acquiring more energy.

Now is the right time to look for lessons from Genoa and to reassess what it means for the role of NGOs in the global governance structure. The current situation could be usefully described as gridlock rather than governance and, as Michael Edwards warned, the situation is already forcing some northern governments to retreat back into their bunkers.

In an article in the Financial Times, Martin Wolff usefully put forward a number of criticisms facing the state of the global governance structure, all of which have been echoed by both the protestors themselves and actors within the structure:

1.Rules that have been applied internationally haven’t helped at all, particularly in marginalised Africa.

2.Financial markets and the systems of global governance have failed.

3.A procedure is needed for dealing with unmanageable debt burdens.

4.Countries must be allowed to decide themselves through democratic processes their policies and priorities.

5.Rich countries should practice what they preach and end their hypocrisy.

6.Corporate interests have too much influence over policy making.

Of course, there are often misconceptions and misunderstanding about the anti-capitalist movement: its members and its motivations. These must be overcome before lessons can be learned and challenges addressed.

Firstly, the movement consists of a diverse collection of organisations and networks; some are formally established, others are less formal and rigid in structure and may in fact just form on the streets; the groups differ according to their own specific interests and aims; and the groups adopt different methods to pursue those agendas.

Secondly, it is often misperceived to be a movement in the north. However, a report published by the IMF and World Bank at their meeting in Prague, ‘States of Unrest’, documents the growth of protest movements in developing countries, showing that over 1 million people were involved in the space of a single year.

Thirdly, the anti-capitalist movement goes beyond the people on the streets of Genoa. The roots of these types of groups are being developed much deeper within society at large, where support is growing. Active protestors represent only a small proportion of those who have taken action, often through much lower intensity forms of protest. A striking example is the petition on debt clearance; at 24 million signatories, this is the largest petition in history.

Legitimacy

Legitimacy has emerged as a central concern in discussions surrounding the reform of global governance structures. NGOs have traditionally sought to hold governments and companies to account for their behaviour. However, they now find themselves in the spotlight, too. As Michael Edwards suggested in his report for the Centre, in order for NGOs to continue to perform their important role on national and international stages, it is vital that their own behaviour is transparent. Michael set out three principles:

1.A voice not a vote – largely accepted by NGOs, and important in buying space from governments for civil society involvement.

2.A level playing field – special help needs to be given to those left out of discussions and a ceiling needs to be placed on those who are over-represented, whether businesses or NGOs. Some of the most prominent Northern groups, for example have volunteered to surrender their accredited place at Qatar to NGOs from the South in order to achieve a more balanced representation of civil society voices.

3.Voluntary ways of regulating NGOs that are not imposed by external forces or governments. These codes of conduct are already beginning to appear, drawn up by (among others) the New Economics Foundation in England and Friends of the Earth in Europe. These codes spell out minimum standards of behaviour for NGOs in the areas of non-violent protest, openness to diverse perspectives, transparency, and accountability.

While it is important that the individual policy groups – governments, companies, NGOs and so forth – are held to account for their activities, it is vital that the structure which brings them together is also open to scrutiny and accountable to all it seeks to represent (this will be addressed in more detail in ‘International Summitry’). In a world of declining state authority, is also impossible to achieve legitimacy without civil society participation and consensus across societies about how to manage the costs and benefits of globalisation. While the structures for achieving this remain undefined, it is clear that there is considerable potential for NGOs to continue to play an important role in this process.

The Challenges to NGO Legitimacy

As Charlotte Denny pointed out, NGOs should not be complacent about the position they have managed to carve out. Many organisations have, for a number of reasons, felt their positions of trust and legitimacy slide in recent years – from the church and the state to the media.

For NGOs, the public’s increasing cynicism about organisations that manipulate information should be cause for concern. Many NGOs are seen to be guilty of propagandising the ongoing debate about globalisation; for example, by using emotive pictures of starving African children in campaigns to force western countries and institutions to cut third world debt. It is, in many respects, simplistic to blame these deaths on the World Bank and the Washington consensus, particularly given the fact that the economic policies that have crippled these countries are largely home-grown, but these images continue to be used.

A number of suggestions were made about how NGOs could guard against the negative implications of these trends:

Firstly, it is vital that NGOs recognise the complexities of the debates in which they are engaged rather than setting up dichotomies between good and bad, where NGOs sit on the side of good and all other actors – international financial and governance institutions, national governments and the private sector – sit firmly on the other side of the table. Such positions do not do justice to the issues they address and are likely to undermine their own legitimacy in the long-term.

Secondly, there is a danger that short-term objectives could undermine long-term goals. Particularly for NGOs closest to the anti-capitalism protestors, the defeat of the Bretton Woods twins and the WTO may be of immediate concern, but if this process continued to its natural end, the total collapse of these organisations may be in opposition to the underlying interests represented by the NGOs – i.e. civil society and southern populations. The danger being that negotiations would still take place, but in a framework where the most powerful nation in the world – the US – would be able to dictate the grounds on which it does business. Instead, fundamental reform of such mechanisms and institutions should be the goal – their health, in whatever format, is a common interest for all groups of actors.

The Future of International Summitry

It was broadly agreed that multilateral institutions still have a critical role to play in tackling poverty and other related global issues, and this formed a central theme in the debate. However, while the organisations themselves undoubtedly need to look for ways to reform the way they work, they also need to reassess the way that the structure their decision- making process. A key element in this is, of course, the high-profile international summits. The violence in Genoa has raised serious questions about the way international discussions are framed and formatted, and the panel emphasised throughout the need for practical change strategies. Four principle suggestions for future international gatherings were put forward:

Firstly, it is vital that international institutions look for ways to reduce the amount of violence that is beginning to characterise their meetings. There are a number of practical measures that could be incorporated at the planning stage that would help to minimise the potential for chaos, but it is also important that there are genuine opportunities for dialogue and engagement with a wider coalition of actors.

Secondly, it is vital that opportunities are created whereby all voices in civil society can be fairly represented, rather than just those who shout loudest. This is particularly true of the powerful northern NGOs and business lobby groups, and it was suggested that additional financing should be made available for smaller, marginalized groups. Governments and private foundations should finance a travel and capacity-building fund so that under-resourced citizen groups can also participate.

Thirdly, international institutions should reassess their voting methods, which at present give undue weight to northern countries. This would allow increased participation by southern countries.

Fourthly, there is a strong case for moving summits to developing countries. This might help international institutions to overcome the perception of imbalance that has dogged them, and it might also be a useful way to redress the balance between northern and southern NGOs. There is also a sense that the arrangements surrounding such delegations have been less than helpful in overcoming this. They have often been seen as no more than a excuse for large-scale corporate hospitality. When this happens within a northern context it sends out negative signals about the goals and working methods of the organisations themselves.

And finally, there is also useful work that can be done at home. Global citizen action should be rooted more firmly within local and national politics. Governments should include representatives from civil society in their national government delegations to global gatherings, and they should host a series of open dialogues beforehand so that their negotiating positions begin to represent the full range of public interests at home.

The Road to Reform

Recent years have been characterised by transition and changes that throw up significant challenges. We find ourselves in the middle of a historic transformation of global politics in which the boundaries between direct and representative democracy, and between local, national and global governance, are being tested and rearranged. Where this will end up, no one is quite sure because it is a radically new situation. As such it is not surprising that the question of NGO involvement is near the top of the agenda, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this is part of a bigger question about the shape of the global governance structures. The challenge for all actors is not just to work out what types of institutions we need and how they should work, it is also to ensure that this process is conducted through genuine partnership. Only then will workable and lasting solutions be found.

It is difficult to underestimate the scale of the task in hand. But if this is not tackled head-on, the scenes we saw in Genoa will become a regular fixture on our screens.

NGOs: Rights and Responsibilities by Michael Edwards was published by The Foreign Policy Centre in September 2000. Copies can be ordered for £9.95 from this site – see ‘publications’.

The publication was kindly supported by NCVO.

“Security through Democratisation: Croatia’s Experience.”

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to have the opportunity to be here with you. The topic I would like to discuss is the position of the Republic of Croatia in relation to what we today understand as security, and how this has reflected the overall democratisation process. I wouldn’t like this to be a speech, but rather a dialogue so I will make it brief and give you more time to ask questions.

What do democratisation and security have in common? The answer is simple – without democratisation, we cannot have security. And without basic security, it is very hard for a country in transition to proceed with its democratisation processes.

Democratisation is placed right at the centre of a new security paradigm, as the security, both internal and external, is the fundamental prerequisite for the development of open, free market societies based on the rule of law- the kind of society Croatia has opted for.

Croatia understands that its security is not an individual country. It entails a whole range of issues and factors. Understanding that without a secure environment, we are not secure either, is one of them.

For much of the 1990s, Croatia has been a subject of numerous international conflict resolution initiatives, hosting a great number of representatives and missions of various international intergovernmental, as well as non-governmental organisations. The UN, the ECMM, the OSCE, Human Rights Watch, and many others. The Transitional UN Administration in Eastern Slavonia – the UNTAES, has remained in Croatia until January of 1998.

Croatia has thus been, for much of the past decade, one of the ‘security takers’. Today, such Croatia no longer exists. Croatia is now one of the active ‘security makers’. What do I mean by that?

I will give you some of the examples of Croatia’s contribution in this respect.

Democratic changes in Croatia, ushered after the parliamentary elections in January last year, have influenced the democratic changes in other parts of the region of South East Europe. Today, Croatia is a stable, modern democracy, a partner-state, fully aware of its international responsibilities and commitments. Croatia is internationally recognised as a regional stability factor that contributes to the security of its neighbours. We do that through partnership and joint activities with other ‘security providers’, such as NATO, the EU, the UN, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and other relevant international actors. In this partnership, what brings us together are, above all, the norms and values, that we share in the realisation of our common goals. Democratisation of South East Europe is one of such goals. Croatia has been very active in advocating further democratisation of its neighbours, emphasising this to be a key factor in establishing closer neighbourly relations. We believe that last week’s extradition of Miloševiæ, the master mind of the tragedies that happened in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo in the 1990s, is an extremely important contribution and a significant step forward in creating a more democratic environment in South East Europe.

As for the regional co-operation, Croatia equally promotes good neighbourly relations with countries of all of the three regions that it belongs to; Central Europe, the Mediterranean, and South East of Europe. What links Croatia to its neighbours is a lot of shared interests and awareness that it is only possible to realise them through co-operation. Sharing the same values and interests is an extremely valuable point in this process, as it has a direct influence on its dynamics. Apart from strengthening the bilateral relations, we are also active in many multilateral regional fora; Croatia participates in around twenty regional initiatives and programmes, designed to promote basically the same goals; peace and stability, and good neighbourly relations, as well as the integration into the European and Euroatlantic mainstream. However, there are too many regional initiatives already, and we feel their further proliferation would not be helpful. We believe there is already an ‘overlap’ and duplication of efforts in the existing ones. This calls for a better co-ordination and streamlining, rather than proliferation, if we wish to achieve better results.

The new Croatian government has strenuously worked and successfully carried out comprehensive reforms that have brought it closer to its main strategic goals; the EU and NATO. Although terms ‘European’ and ‘Euroatlantic integration’ tend to assume mythic features, in Croatia’s case it is not anything like cherishing a myth or illusion centred around a sudden rise of the standard of living. It is more an issue of European identity.

Integration into EU and NATO is motivated by a strong desire to become an active part of the coalition of the countries that have a political will and ability to defend and promote the fundamental values advocated by those institutions. And the basic rights of every citizen.

The process of democratisation in Croatia is taking place on two levels: 1) ‘from above’ through the basic democratic orientation and specific politicies of its government and 2) ‘from bellow’, through the active engagement of the Croatian society – our media is engaged, our NGOs, our academia, as well as other segments of the society. Our co-operation is primarily based on a constructive dialogue. Sometimes we share views and sometimes we have different opinions – but we talk and exchange ideas, and this dialogue is the driving force behind our co-operation in building a fully democratic society. Such ‘two-way approach’ proved to be, indeed, a road to success.

The democratisation process requires great personal commitment, hard work and financial sacrifices. Here I must stress a great will and determination of every single citizen of Croatia that is being invested in this process.

Our stability and successful reforms have been recognised by the EU, that calls Croatia, quote-unquote, “a stable democracy, on its way to integrate into the European structures”. Overall progress is especially to be seen in the domain of human rights. The American NGO ‘Freedom House’ has in its last report, for the first time ever, given Croatia a status of “a completely free country”. In addition to that, I must specially emphasise the decision made by the Council of Europe to end the human rights monitoring mission in Croatia. Croatia is also no longer included in the ‘Omnibus’ UN Resolution on the Situation on Human Rights.

In May last year, Croatia has joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme and in May this year we have initialled the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU that we will most probably sign during the Belgian presidency.

We understand that integration is a process, requiring a certain period of time. Meeting all of the criteria is a difficult job. But the results we have achieved so far give us enough of optimism and pose an impetus to move further. In this process, we have managed to achieve standards chosen to behave as we are already one of the members. We can say that Croatia’s success in transforming from a security taker to security maker, in only few years, has already become a sort of a paradox of South East Europe.

· From having the UN peacemakers on its territory, only few years ago, Croatia’ s peacekeepers are now actively contributing to security elsewhere. Our military representatives are participating in the UN peace support missions in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as military observers.

· From being one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, Croatia’s mine experts are now engaged in demining activities world-wide. Their experience and expertise that they have developed in the demining activities in our country, are very much appreciated.

· From having our non-governmental organisations trained by international experts, Croatian NGOs are now engaged in training NGOs in other countries in transition.

· From having the UNCIVPOL police forces in Eastern Slavonia only few years back, our policemen are now engaged in the OMIK Mission in Kosovo, where they have been teaching at the Kosovo Multiethnic Police Academy.

· In Albania, we have also seconded our legal expert to the OSCE Mission.

· Croatia shares concerns of international community regarding the present situation in Macedonia. We are supporting the efforts of the EU and NATO and stand ready to provide our contribution.

One of the main problems of Europe today is a proliferation of ‘soft security’ threats, such as the illegal migrations, drugs and arms trafficking, as well as other forms of the organised crime. As much as our geographic location makes our position most favourable in terms of communications and transport links, our territory, with its long borders along the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as our coast line, is a target of those security threats, too.

However, there is a positive side to this. Croatian geographic position, connecting the three regions of Europe, makes it an indispensable factor in the European security. Our results in combating and stopping soft security threats testify about our commitment and efficiency in this respect. In fact, we can say that we have become a ‘front-line’ state towards Western Europe. How did we achieve this? Primarily, due to our institutional capacity.

Here, I must certainly emphasise Croatian border control, which is, apart from the sea border that is controlled jointly by the police and the military, exclusively controlled by the police. To substantiate this claim, allow me to quote the findings of the Budapest Group evaluation mission; “Croatian border control systems and relevant legislation meet western European standards.” By defending its own borders, Croatia defends borders of others, too, and its role in this field is regarded as most valuable.

The key word in combating soft security threats is co-operation. I will give you an example of how Croatia can be assisted in further strengthening of its institutional capacity – through co-operation, based on an extremely important element: the transfer of knowledge. Last month in Zagreb, there was a meeting of the Third Working Table on Security Issues of the Stability Pact, that Croatia was co-chairing. As we all work on same goals and to avoid any duplications, the aim of our co-chairmanship was to establish a greater link and closer co-operation between the countries in the region and other participants. Notably NATO in defence and security issues, and the EU and the Council of Europe in the domain of Justice and Home Affairs. I think we have managed to find a formula, based on joining our potential, especially knowledge and expertise; the establishment of a ‘trilateral border co-operation’, among countries of south east Europe, the EU candidate countries and one or more of the EU countries, was confirmed. The greater level of co-operation with NATO was also established in the field of the natural disaster preparedness activities. Next year’s fire-fighting exercise is to be held in Croatia, titled ‘Taming the Dragon 2000”, as a part of the PfP activities.

The Zagreb meeting has confirmed what Croatia has been advocating for some time now – a ‘functional integration’. As today’s security threats are in its nature trans-border, they have to be confronted with means other than bureaucratic ones. Working on common goals requires a common involvement and co-operation. Let me give you an example. I believe that the Stockholm Meeting on Illegal Migrations between the EU countries and the EU candidates held in March this year, excluding other countries of South East Europe, should have been just the opposite. Illegal migrations pose a problem that no one is imune to. As this problem effects countries from Ukrain to Slovenia, it should have included all the countries directly threatened by it.

South and East of our borders, there is still work to be done in terms of achieving sustainable stability. We are ready to continue with our constructive approach to meet this goal, in co-operation with the international community. Although Croatia cannot be a crucial element in this process, we are ready to contribute in whatever may be our share, such as to try and assist positive developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, we feel our greatest contribution to the region’s stability is to continue with our reforms and build a stable and prosperous Croatia.

Security and democratisation are inter-linked. For whatever reasons people feel insecure, from being exposed to any external aggression or internal threat, it is difficult to promote and ‘move further’ with democratisation processes. The region of South East Europe is a good example of this, because the countries were engaged in a parallel process of building its own institutional capacities, as well as meeting the basic security requirements. As such process is, I’m sure you agree, very difficult, we can say that our achievement and results are, in this respect, indeed, significant.

I hope I have managed to briefly present the position of the Republic of Croatia in relation to what we today understand as security, in relation to the democratisation processes. How a country can both change its face and its security potential, when basic security requirements are met and when the entire society supports and participates in democratisation processes.

Britain’s Europhiles could be forgiven for crying into their Carlsberg after the Danish referendum. Overnight, the Eurosceptics have transformed this small corner of Scandinavia into a matchbox version of Blighty and presented their campaign as a dry-run of our referendum. The Danish “Nej” is meant to be the end of our debate. But history may see it as the moment when the pro-Europeans finally came out fighting.
The reflex action of the yes camp has been to stress the differences between Britain and Denmark. The pint-size krone is indeed a less attractive target for speculators than an international currency like the pound. And as the krone was already pegged to the euro, it was difficult to persuade voters that the euro would bring any new economic benefits.

Denmark also has fewer floating voters. Public opinion has been hardened by six referendums on European questions in the past 20 years. This wearying succession of public debates has left few undecided. In Britain, there is still everything to fight for. Opinion polls show that almost half the country say they are “open to persuasion” on the euro.

The issues in Copenhagen were completely different. Many older voters feared that Denmark’s generous welfare state would be jeopardised by hard-nosed monetarists in the European Central Bank – not a common complaint here. And fears over Denmark’s power within the EU are similarly alien. The imposition of EU sanctions on Austria led to real public concern that small countries would be left powerless. Defeat in Denmark can teach pro-Europeans three important lessons.

First it shows that Blair must win the political – as well as the economic – argument on the euro. The Danish yes campaign showed beyond doubt that even the people convinced of the benefits for jobs and mortgages will still vote no if we lose the argument on sovereignty. The yes campaign should therefore argue that pooling sovereignty in the EU is the best way to maintain our influence over our everyday lives on economics, the environment and security. And outside the euro we will never punch our weight. This argument is already partly won. A majority of British public opinion is in favour of European action in the areas where they think it makes sense – on pollution and defence.

Making the political case for the euro will depend on getting the big picture right. The Danish yes campaign was defeated on the details. It often ended up on a defensive footing – frantically rebutting scare stories about pensions and tax harmonisation, because it failed to set out a practical, attractive vision of the EU. The prime minister needs to set out an EU blueprint to rival the federal super-state of popular imagination.

Timing is half the battle. The Danish campaign coincided with all-time lows in the value of the euro against the dollar and was called during a severe bout of mid-term blues. Tony Blair would be wise to keep his flexible formula on the timing of the referendum (“early in the next parliament”) if he is to avoid temporary storms blowing him off course.

There is often a temptation to preach to the converted. Of course it’s true that the public will listen to expert voices on economics and that views will filter down from the boardroom. But the yes campaign in Denmark spent a disproportionate amount of time and resources wooing the sharp suits that were already onboard. The next phase of the euro campaign in Britain has to take the battle from the business pages and CBI receptions to glossy magazines and kitchen tables.

The testosterone-fuelled political classes should not lose sight of the fact that the euro campaign will have to be targeted at women. A gaping gender gap proved fatal to the yes camp in Denmark, who couldn’t find a language and style to appeal to women voters. In Britain, according to a recent Mori poll, only 27% of women would vote in favour of a single currency compared to 35% of men.

The final lesson is the most important. Whatever the political strategy, Denmark has shown how the referendum will be won or lost by that most elusive of political commodities: public trust. This will be more important than the detail of economic argument and will have to come from politicians, not business leaders.

Though Danish business opinion was overwhelmingly in favour, the scepticism of a handful of high-profile bankers gave the impression that opinion was divided. As Bob Worcester convincingly argues in the Foreign Policy Centre pamphlet, How To Win The Euro Referendum, when expert opinion is split on complex issues, the electorate will respond to politicians they trust.

According to this law, Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was doomed from the start. Ever since he failed to implement the “efterlon”, a manifesto pledge to lower the age of retirement, he lost public confidence. Only 8% of the electorate express “a lot of trust” in him. Even in the middle of the fuel crisis, Tony Blair scored much higher.

Preserving this trust means being obsessive about the credibility of your arguments. Don’t make claims for Europe that don’t stack up. Under the Tories, it was true that the EU offered people social protection that the government denied them. But everyone knows that they can get social benefits from a Labour government with or without EU support. This means focusing only on areas where Europe can add value: the single market, cheaper prices, environmental action, defence and the battle against organised crime. And it means being honest about the facts. The Danish yes camp was not believed when it made dark predictions of economic doom. British pro-Europeans should not flinch from pointing out the dangers of staying out of the euro zone, but they should steer clear of apocalyptic rhetoric.

Pulling off the greatest turnaround in public opinion since the war will be no easy task. The leader of the yes campaign in Britain will need to find a new political vocabulary, capable of reaching the parts that other politicians can’t. And they’ll need to do it at a time when faith in the political system has never been lower. But pro-Europeans should relish the challenge. We have all the arguments on our side. All we need to do is find effective proselytisers for our cause. To vulgarise a phrase from that fabled communicator in the Whitehouse: “It’s the politics, stupid.”

Mark Leonard is director of the Foreign Policy Centre.

Thursday 24th May, 6:30pm

Despite dissonance over many of the fundamentals, the evening opened several doors for potential solutions to the impasse, including:

1. The introduction of tiered patenting systems
2. Increased flexibility in the terms of TRIPs for developing countries
3. The creation of an international fund to support the consolidation of health systems in those parts of the developing world most violently hit by the AIDS virus.

H. E. Sergio Silvo do Amaral, set out the case of Brazil ¡V a country widely regarded as one of the few success stories of HIV policy in the developing world. While Brazil recognises the need to respect intellectual property rights in order to promote innovation, it has kept regulation flexible and has tackled HIV head on. Through a complex set of State-led initiatives, Brazil now produces certain key drugs 72% cheaper than its counterparts on the world market. These drugs are supplied free of charge to all HIV sufferers. The initiative has had a phenomenal and hope-inspiring effects: death tolls from 9600 in 1996 to 1200 in 2000, and the overall infection rates in Brazil have slowed dramatically.

Brazil is a textbook case of the need to maintain flexibility within this debate. Brazil participated in the negotiation of TRIPS and has applied it to domestic legislation before many other countries. However, it has also taken full advantage of articles 40 and 71 of the TRIPS agreement which make an exception for health emergencies. This amendment on national health emergencies is a key loophole for developing nations, one which could be applied to most African countries. This is significant for South Africa since the government did not declare an emergency to justify the domestic production of the triple cocktail.

In his eyes, the enormity of its social responsibility makes the position of the pharmaceutical industry exceptional. Although the interest of their shareholders is legitimate, it is morally questionable that they should supersede the needs of HIV patients in poor countries. But political will is key in tackling the AIDS crisis in developing nations. Brazil has been successful because there has been a concerted effort to strengthen state provision and to put together a plan which includes not only access to drugs but also a massive educational campaign for prevention, the creation of an extensive network of clinics that gave wide access for those needing testing, treatment and follow-up visits and an emphasis on NGO and civil sector involvement.

Reactions of the pharmaceutical ¡§camp¡¨ were represented by Chris Viehbacher, President of Pharmaceuticals GlaxoSmithKline Europe. Although introduced as the so-called ogre of the group, Mr Viehbacher made clear his company’s commitments to overcoming the impasse. He began by asserting that the bottom line is purely an economic issue. Research and development is what keeps creating medicines the world needs and in order to do this, pharmaceuticals must regain in profits what has been invested in R&D, which amounts to 2 billion per year by GlaxoSmithKline.

Mr. Viehbacher also brought up the multi-faceted character of the issue, which shed light on the fact that it is not solely the existence of patents that prevents AIDS patients across the world from being untreated. In fact, Mr. Viehbacher stated that pharmaceutical patents are not what have prevented AIDS patients in the developing world from being treated. In many developing countries, it is the basic infrastructure of healthcare that is lacking and preventing access to medical care. This point is only underscored by the fact that, according to the WHO, 95% of commonly used drugs today are out of patent, yet people die from curable diseases such as malaria and TB daily.

He pointed to the example of Brazil and the necessity of its well implemented policy-package. HIV treatment is not a simple affair. It is a complex treatment that requires commitment, regularity and high levels of care. Lack of infrastructure inhibits regularity and proper care. More worrying is the fact that discontinued treatments can increase the resistance of the HIV virus, raising the possibility of spreading new strains of the virus and rendering these drugs worthless in the long-term.

Mr. Viehbacher reasserted GlaxoSmithKline’s commitment to the following:
1. Working out an agenda for differential pricing that allows for consumers in developed nations to bear a greater proportion of the overall burden.
2. Recuperating investment in R&D in the developed world
Using the example of Brazil, he also emphasized the need for a dialogue on improving the health care systems of developing nations. Measures such as differential pricing are therefore only the first step.

Adrian Otten spelt out the key dilemma in the IP debate: how to balance the rights of creators and innovators with the need to ensure maximum access to existing innovations to the developing countries facing devastating health-related challenges such as AIDS. Despite much vilification, in Mr Otten’s eyes, the TRIPS agreement is not oblivious to this challenge. The agreement makes certain key provisions for compulsory licensing, parallel imports and exemption in a state of national emergency.

The WTO, he said, recognises that important anti-viral drugs for the treatment of HIV are under patent protection. However, it does not claim that the TRIPS agreement is comprised of a set of rigid rules, as certain clauses do provide flexibility. Furthermore, the WTO does not block measures such as differential pricing.

Phil Bloomer of OXFAM, began with bold assertions of facts that capture what he called a ‘global health gap of obscene proportions’. The death of 30,000 people a day worldwide, half of which are children, speaks for itself and are hard to reconcile with the fact that patients in developing countries with an inadequate healthcare and/or insurance system have to pay for drugs.

HIV has short-term effects on sufferers and their families. More significantly, the blight of human capital has grim repercussions on the long-term prospects of African countries. In his eyes, WTO policies tend to foster the existence of monopolies in certain sectors, putting the credibility and efficiency of today’s economic system into question as the market-driven allocation of goods by the equilibrium of supply and demand clearly fails to occur. How else can it be justified that there is little or no R&D invested in diseases that kill solely in less developing nations?

More needs to be done according to Mr. Bloomer. While he agreed that investment in the health infrastructure of developing countries was crucial and commended any initiatives promoting differential pricing, he criticised global agreements for being biased in favour of corporate interests, and highlighted the need to use multilateral agreements to actively foster shifts in corporate behaviour of industries involved. As sub-Saharan Africa provides only 1 percent profit for pharmaceuticals, he advocates that 20 year blanket global patent are simply unnecessary and counter-productive. The WTO should either allow the import of affordable drugs into developing nations in need, or permit the generic industry to supply their demand.

In Mr Bloomer’s eyes, TRIPS is far too rigid an agreements for a multidimensional issue such as the patenting of medicines. Furthermore, it is unable to take into account the plethora of vested interests which comprise this debate.

The concluding section of the discussion focused on what is generally referred to as the flow back issue. While production in developing countries is not a threat to pharmaceutical profits per se, if unregulated those generic producers will undoubtedly turn their eyes towards profitable developed world markets, be it legally or illegally. Although, as pointed out by Oxfam, these highly controlled markets seem difficult to penetrate illegally, ‘flow-back’ issue makes the differential pricing solution more attractive to pharmaceuticals. It became clear that TRIPS needs to be rethought and in many cases re-negotiated.

TRIPS and patenting laws should not form an obstacle for launching a concerted international effort to tackle the ravages of AIDS. Speakers agreed that an initial move should be the creation of an international fund, supported by government and the private sector, solely to assist the development of healthcare systems in countries that do not have them.

The Global Health Lecture series is organised in association with Medsin, and is kindly supported by the Wellcome Trust. Previous Lectures include:
Big Killers: Aids and the Other Preventable Scourges of the Human Race,
Sex, Population, Pollution and Prospects for a Small Planet,
The Impact of Violent Conflict on Health Services.
A final lecture on Technology and Health will be held later this year.
If you are interested in attending the final lecture on technology and health , please e-mail phoebe@fpc.org.uk

Fidel Ramos: Post September 11th –
Implications for Stability and Security in Southeast Asia

Tuesday 13th of November 2001 3.30-4.45pm
At the London School of Economics and Political Science

Participants:

Chair: Michael Yahuda, Professor of International Relations, LSE

In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in the US, and the subsequent military action, The Foreign Policy Centre organised a lecture by Fidel Ramos. In his capacity as both former President of the Philippines and the Commander in Chief of the country’s 1st Special Forces, he analysed the build up to the tragic events and looked at the implications for South East Asia.

The Context of the Lecture

The atrocities of September 11th have forced politicians to re-think their concepts of international security. The significance of interdependence has never been clearer, and this forces discussion to focus on the United States’ relations with the rest of the world. Many have articulated their fears that growing US unilateralism or isolationism could stand in the way of progress that has been made towards multilateralism and international co-operation. South East Asia, like all other regions of the world, is considering what this could mean for them, and how they would fit into a new framework.

COMBATTING TERRORISM: THE WORLD AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

Terrorism poses a test of resolve, both for individual states and for the world as a community. The events of September 11th highlighted more clearly than any event in recent history the fact that unrest and stirrings in one part of the world can result in significant repercussions across the globe. With such a dispersed and serious threat, there is, as Ramos commented, “No room for complacency.” However, responsibility must lie with powerful states – especially those in the Western world – to ensure that conflicts are curbed before they can escalate.

As is becoming clearer, both national and regional security is dependent upon co-operation extended between countries. This is a theme that was explored by Robert Cooper in his report for The Foreign Policy Centre, The Post-Modern State and the World Order. Clear moves in this direction have been made in SE Asia; the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia are currently negotiating a pact that would commit them to sharing intelligence on terrorist activities, heightening control over borders to curb the flow of weapons and undertaking joint law-enforcement and peacekeeping operations. The ambition is that eventually all ASEAN countries will join this intra-regional security arrangement. Already, the whole of the East Asian region has declared its support for the anti-terrorist coalition formed by the United States.

DOMESTIC CONCERNS IN SE ASIA

The extent of the threat posed by a direct terrorist attack is difficult to predict. While the threat posed by the Al Qaida network seems most acutely felt by rich countries, it is vital for countries such as the Philippines, and the South East Asian region as a whole, to understand the threats they face. Two factors were focused on: economic concerns for the region and the attitude of the Muslim communities in Southeast Asia.

In the event of an attack, the collateral damage is most severe on export-oriented poor countries. Confidence in these economies has already been badly shaken since September 11th and they would likely suffer considerably if they were to be targeted by terrorists on their own soil or within close proximity. The WTO must make greater efforts to insulate outward looking economies from this kind of detriment. In its October 25th issue, The Economist echoed this call to integrate efforts at economic betterment with security concerns. It argued that the Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum (APEC), by virtue of its informal setting, would do well to broaden its agenda in this direction.

Radical Islamism is spreading across Southeast Asia. Many local governments are offering concessions for Muslim communities seeking further autonomy. For example, the Indonesian government is offering “special autonomy” to its Aceh province, and Philippine President G. Macapagal-Arroyo is about to conclude a peace agreement with the orthodox, separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). However, the risk of an Asian-instigated jihad seem small, due largely to the quiet nature of the SUFI school of Islam, to which most Asian Muslims belong. Even Indonesia, as the greatest Muslim country in the world, has a secular state and its great diversity of peoples, spread over 13 000 islands, does not seem to suggest a sufficient degree of cohesiveness as a group as to make this a likely development in the near future.

TOWARD A SAFER FUTURE

Undoubtedly, the issue of terrorism cannot be considered without addressing possible underlying causes. Global inequalities, the world-wide grievance of Arab peoples and the sometime failure of the modern secular nation-state to provide its citizens with a sufficient sense of security can all be said to be features of the contemporary world conducive to unrest and terrorism.

There is little doubt that poverty is a breeding-ground for terrorism. Injustice and depravation are central problems to be addressed, and this task is equally important in efforts to uproot terrorism. There is a real need to level the field in international trade: to open up rich-country markets to agricultural exports from developing countries and, more generally, to reform the market system so as to enhance its ability to care for those left behind by development.

Globalisation, by its very nature, is precarious. Easily subjected to cultural resentment, economic issues are at the heart of what is perceived as a “clash of civilisations”. Oft viewed as a “rebellion of the excluded”, Islamism has been seen to radicalise in impoverished areas, where the memory of humiliation by Western powers is reiterated in the frustration of being economically left behind, too.

Lastly, it is the corruption of modern society and its recent secularisation which have, in many ways, prompted a religious revolt of the kind we have seen in recent years. The “idolatry of the market” that Pope John Paul II has cited has created a society where material matters have acquired an improper importance. Ramos calls for “Caring, Sharing and Daring”: we must dare to sacrifice for the common good; and we must recognise the failures of the modern nation-state in respect of economic prosperity, political freedom and social justice. Such a two-fold struggle is imperative: we must take issue with the global economic injustice that can lead to aggression and we must combat terrorism head-on through the emerging models of international co-operation.