12 DE OUTUBRO DE 2013

13

ANEXO A

Speech by Mr. Mendes Bota on the debate of Report VAN DER MAELEN, about “The activities of the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2012-2013”

Plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Strasbourg, 1st of october 2013

Mr. President, Dear Colleagues,

If the current economic crisis served any purpose, it was to let out in the open the inequalities existent in

modern democracies.

For although the principles of equality make up the motto of every constitution in the civilized world, the truth

is that, dissolved in the schism between rich and poor, powerful and helpless, these proved to be easy prey to

the interests that manipulate them, and a remote dream to many others.

As it always is in times of war, when to the lower classes the greater burden is imputed, in this new

battlefield as well – of impoverishment and unemployment – it proves to be those that, for their economic and

work situations, are the most vulnerable, that they are also the most hardly hit by austerity measures.

The Van der Maelen report raises various legitimate issues on this matter. However, for the purposes of this

speech we will only highlight three aspects.

1. Fiscal effectiveness is a crucial step for maintaining and expanding the social state such as we know it.

However, with the virtual economy going global, with transactions completed to the speed of light, on a

worldwide scale, it has become increasingly difficult for an obsolete system to tax large businesses and

corporations.

Resorting to fiscal havens has become common practice, with the complicity of the biggest industrialized

economies.

The fear of losing investment, of seeing businesses relocate, and the consequent rise in unemployment, has

made the more developed democracies hostages of a modus operandi that, at its best, is callous, and at its

worst hipocrit.

This is not a problem pervading exclusively the jargon in political spheres, or academic debates in any such

abstract dimension.

The consequences of an ineffective taxation on profits is felt, now more than ever, in the way states are

forced to compensate this deficit, by over-taxing individuals and small businesses, cutting on public services,

health, education, social welfare, etc.

A state that is powerless before established interests is a threat to any defined social contract.

We therefore fully support the OECD’s intentions in their efforts to press countries to impose greater

transparency in the disclosure of assets and transactions, as well as a greater inter-agency coordination among

them, and the fight on fiscal havens.

2. It is important to support initiatives such as the OECD’s Green Growth Strategy.

Boosting investment in the clean energies market is not only a way to ensure stable and durable

employment in a fundamental strategic area in the long run, but also a way to redirect the billions spent on

carbon fuels – most of which from non-European countries –, making thus every nation more self-suficient and

preventing the convulsions – especially in periods of crisis – often verified in the ever volatile fuel industry.

It is never too much to emphasize the potential of this bet, with recent reports estimating that 30 million jobs

were created worldwide via this sector. In France alone, the OECD estimates the stimulus pack on clean

energies to have been responsible for the creation of 80.000 to 110.000 jobs for the 2009-2010 period.

All this is on course with the stated on chapter 2 of the Van der Maelen report, about the necessity to evade

traditional financeering and promoting new ideas, of which the New Approaches to Economic Challenges

(NAEC) program is the finest example.