Text tabled : RC-B6-0119/2006

  Pedro Guerreiro (GUE/NGL), in writing. (PT) Although this motion for a resolution includes points on which we would raise serious questions, we support the most positive aspects of the resolution.

That being said, the Millennium Goals – to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, to achieve universal primary education, to promote gender equality and empower women, to reduce child mortality, to improve maternal health, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, to ensure environmental sustainability and to develop a global partnership for development – will stand little chance of being achieved merely by implementing limited, window-dressing measures.

These urgent and worthwhile goals will only be achieved if there is a sea-change in the policies currently pursued by the main capitalist powers and by the international fora dominated by those powers, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. What is needed is an end to capitalist competition, the liberalisation of trade, privatisations, the reduction in workers’ rights and salaries, the stranglehold on national policies by the large economic and financial groups and the concentration of wealth among the few, at the cost of the exploitation and oppression of the people.

In order for these goals to be achieved, there needs to be a complete overhaul of the system – that is, capitalism – which foments exploitation, inequality, poverty, violence and oppression.