By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Oct 22 2003 (IPS)

The European Union must change in order to bridge the North-South divide, a top official says in a report.

Institutions such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations(UN), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must respond to the changing global order if they are to help developing countries, according to a report written by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, former prime minister of Denmark and rapporteur on globalisation to the Party of European Socialists.

Presenting his report ‘Europe and a New Global Order’ Wednesday to a forum organised by the World Bank and the Brussels-based independent think-tank, the European Policy Centre (EPC), Rasmussen urged policy makers that it is ”time for change”.

Rasmussen said the EU must begin internal reform before it can tackle global issues such as workers’ rights, fair trade and AIDS. ”The European Union cannot take on a lead role as a global player addressing global divides unless it tackles the internal problems that already exist,” he told delegates.

He said the global agenda of the EU under a new constitution should address three key issues – development; global challenges such as unemployment, institutional reform and economic growth; and global governance.

Some of these issues are raised in a new EU constitution. A final version of this is due by the end of the year.

Rasmussen said the current Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) system where European leaders meet occasionally to discuss international issues should be replaced by a more democratic and open system where the EU could speak as one voice to institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and the UN.

He called for greater coordination between the EU and these organisations so that developing countries could have a greater say in world affairs, and work towards common aims such as the Doha Development Round.

Rasmussen said meeting the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) outlined at a Millennium Summit in September 2000 should be a priority for the developing world.

These include pledges to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, and to reduce the mortality rate of children under five by two-thirds.

In order to meet these goals, he said the International Labour Standards should be integrated into the MDGs, and job creation and social progress should be ”new pillars” of a global policy.

”After the Millennium Goals we can each define our own strategy for global governance,” he told IPS after the meeting. ”This process has already started, it is already in people’s minds but it needs to be more open.”

Rasmussen also highlighted the need to revive the Doha Development Round, which stalled with the failure of the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September.

World Bank EU Representative Haleh Bridi supported Rasmussen’s views at the forum, saying that the ”old global institutions” should react to a changing world order and begin to look at things differently.

”It’s about time that the developed world realises that there will be a new global agenda, and changes their institutions to deal with this,” she said.

Quoting World Bank statistics, Bridi said that the population of the developing world is expected to grow by 1.5 billion over the next 20 years, compared to 50 million people in the developed world.

She also said that in the coming years economic growth in developing countries is expected to overtake that in developed countries. These trends, she said, would have a significant impact on the global order.

”The middle class will soon spread to developing countries,” she said. ”This will mean that they will have greater negotiating powers than they do now. Eventually the North-South notion will be obsolete and developing countries such as India and Brazil will also become donors with different priorities than current donors.”

Bridi stressed that global institutions, civil society, academics and experts need to develop a broad consensus on global issues rather than leave decision-making at a government to government level.

”A great deal of introspection is already happening at the World Bank so we can address the needs of a changing world,” she said.

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