Hold the thief!
BERLIN The Heinrich Boell Foundation, affiliated with the German governing party Alliance 90/The Greens, foments Latin American resistance to the pan-American Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). At an international symposium of the Heinrich Boell Foundation at the end of June in Berlin, it was claimed that the FTAA, ,,representing US interests"had to be ,,prevented". At the moment, the German government makes a major effort to obtain a free trade agreement between the EU and the Latin American economic alliance Mercosur before the FTAA's finalization.
In case the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement does not become effective before the FTAA, the German economy could expect heavy losses, according to German business associations. Thus, they also talk about a ,,free trade race". 1)
Mass pauperization with the US...
In order to torpedo the negotiations of the competitor for the world market, the United States, which is eager to establish the FTAA in early 2005, the Heinrich Boell Foundation now integrates all Latin American movements which resist the free trade area. Local experts expect further social depredations if the Latin American states have to compromise their sovereignty by ceding economic rights to Pan-American decision-making bodies that would be dominated by the United States. There is special fear of a collapse of peasant agriculture and further mass pauperization.
... or with Germany
Meanwhile, the German government agitates for the quick conclusion of a EU-Mercosur free trade agreement. The agreement would damage protective barriers of Latin American national economies; further social depreciation has to be expected as well. Critics draw parallels to Eastern European states: In Poland, for example, which will have to abandon protective barriers for its agriculture after joining the EU, a collapse of up to 80 percent of agricultural enterprises is predicted. 2)
Strategy of domination
The Heinrich Boell Foundation establishes ties with the resistance to free trade with the FTAA; thus weakening possible resistance to free trade with the EU. By including resisting social classes and using them for German designs for domination, the foundation now also follows a foreign policy strategy that, so far, brought the party Alliance 90/The Greens into two federal governments.
1) See also earlier article Berlin: EU must assert itself against the USA in Latin America
2) See also earlier article ,,Annexation of Poland"
See also earlier article ,,The Most Effective Instruments of German Foreign Policy"
Sources:
Freihandel in Lateinamerika - eine kollektive Unterwerfungsgeste; www.boell.de
,,Die Freihandelszone ist ein Albtraum"; taz 01.07.2003