MEDIA
RELEASE
International Chamber
of Commerce (ICC) World Congress
Business Leaders Meet
in Budapest to Set Global Political Agenda
Budapest, 2 May 2000
World business and political leaders will meet this week (3-5 May) in Budapest for the 33rd World Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), an European-based research and campaign group, denounces the excessive political power exercised by corporate groups such as the ICC, and their agenda-setting role in global politics. The global elite gathers in Budapest to ensure that the European Union enlargement benefits corporate commercial interests and to try to get WTO negotiations back in full swing after Seattle.
According to CEO´s Erik Wesselius, "the ICC Congress promises to be a showcase for the lack of legitimacy of corporations being political actors, corrupting and partly taking over what should be democratic decision-making processes and debates".
With the Budapest meeting, the ICC gives off a political signal to Central and Eastern European (CEE) politicians to embrace the corporate-driven neo-liberal agenda embodied in the EU enlargement project. The "New Europe" envisaged by the ICC stands for a neo-liberal Europe, a corporate Europe, where democracy is subjected to the discipline of financial markets and where competititiveness is the leading principle of policy-making. Eastward enlargement is seen by transnational corporations from the West as an opportunity to win market domination in the region while at the same time get access to a relatively cheap labor force. The forced restructuring of these societies pays no attention to the negative impacts on employment and environment that dependency on foreign investments have already had in CEE societies.
The ICC will also use the Budapest meeting to promote a WTO Millennium Round. Despite the global opposition shown in Seattle against a new round of multilateral negotiations within the World Trade Organisation to further liberalise world trade and investment rules, the ICC has not changed its ambitions. The close links between the ICC and the WTO are belied by WTO´s director general Mike Moore’s attendance at the Budapest meeting. Moore is expected to "send a rallying cry for the WTO" and to set out the framework for getting the WTO´s globalisation agenda back in track, in a new attempt to set international rules to further protect corporations and take away political power from democratically elected governments.
Hungarian civil society organisations have just issued the "Budapest Declaration" declaring themselves part of the world-wide opposition against economic globalisation and denouncing the ICC Congress´ political agenda.Despite the ICC´s influence and connections with the political system, the mounting opposition and critique of corporate-led globalisation and the increased scrutiny and distrust of corporate involvement in international decision-making, will place the ICC and others alike increasingly under fire.
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) is
a European-based research and campaign group targeting the threats to democracy,
equity, social justice and the environment posed by the economic and political
power of corporations and their lobby groups. CEO has just published a
set of fact-sheets with background information on the ICC. They are available
at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo
Paulus Potterstraat 20 • 1071 DA Amsterdam • Netherlands
tel/fax: +31-20-612-7023 • e-mail: <ceo@xs4all.nl> • http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo
This page was installed on May 3, 2000