MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
World Leaders focus on “Third Way” Ideas.
President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina is making his first visit to the United Kingdom and other European countries since assuming office on May 25.
Here is a special article by Mercopress London Correspondent Harold Briley.
Mr. Kirchner and several other world leaders, including President Luiz Inacio Lula de La Silva of Brazil and President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, have been invited by Prime Minister Tony Blair to a two day Progressive Governance Conference of international centre-left and social democrat parties (on Friday and Saturday, July 11th and 12th) followed on Sunday night and Monday by a heads of Government Summit meeting.
The focus will be on the so-called "Third Way " theme advanced by Tony Blair to seek a pragmatic compromise between hard left and conservative right policies, and to share ideas on how to promote greater social justice and equality among their own populations and in the wider world.
UK "No" to Argentina on Falklands Whatever hopes President Kirchner may have in mind to re-open Falklands (Malvinas) sovereignty negotiations will be met by categorical rejection from the British Government. While the United Kingdom will be entirely sympathetic and willing to do what it can to help Argentina overcome its acute economic and social problems, it will make plain to the new Buenos Aires Government, as it has to successive Argentine governments since 1982, that Falklands sovereignty is not negotiable. The Islanders will remain British so long as that is their wish, as it clearly is.
The Argentine delegation may try to raise the issue in peripheral meetings with British ministers but will be rebuffed. The UK would however welcome closer co-operation for mutual benefit on such issues as fishing conservation in the South Atlantic, vital to Falklands prosperity.
President Kirchner's speech to leaders of the Armed forces only a few days before leaving Argentina has been carefully analysed in London, not least his latest reference to the Falklands dispute, in which he declared: "Diplomacy must be the path for recovering that soil sprinkled with Argentine blood in the hope of seeing our flag waving over those islands: something that we also want in our Antarctic zone".
This kind of rhetoric is not welcome in the British Foreign Office. It is the kind of remark successive Presidents make to pander to domestic political demands.
Focus on social justice and economic well-being This London meeting of centre-left and social democrat leaders has nothing to do with sovereignty disputes such as the Falklands (Malvinas) but everything to do with overcoming the kind of problems Argentina has encountered in recent years, perhaps more acutely than perhaps any other developed and well-educated nation, having reneged on the biggest foreign debt in history while struggling with grave domestic challenges of poverty, crime and inequality.
The aim of the London conference could hardly be summed up better than by another passage in President Kirchner's speech at the Armed Forces Club: "Recovering social progress and the lost upward mobility, recovering production and employment, and generating wealth and distributing it fairly are the fundamental bases for constructing a reliable country".
Those are precisely the kind of issues that the world leaders want to consider and to hear President Kirchner's ideas and policies for achieving progress.
The Progressive Governance Conference has been called precisely to attempt to galvanise the social democrat parties of the world into closer co-operation to promote social justice and economic well-being, especially for the poorest people of the world.
Healing divisions over Iraq Among the other leaders contributing their ideas at the conference are such heavy-weights as former United States President Bill Clinton, the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. Joining in the discussions and having separate meetings will be teams of ministers accompanying their leaders and also academics.
Prime Minister Tony Blair sees it as another opportunity to heal divisions with allies over the Iraq War as well as to exchange ideas to tackle public service and welfare reform, migration and the modernisation of industry. The Falklands issue is far from the forefront of Prime Ministers Blair's mind, plunged, as he is, in deep controversy over allegations that he misled Parliament and the British people over intelligence reports he cited on the threat posed by Iraq and the reasons for the allied invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. He faces growing challenge from the Opposition Conservative Party and from rebels among his own Labour Members of Parliament and trade union critics of his government's policies. He will welcome this conference as welcome relief to get away from this national strife in the United Kingdom which has been dominating the headlines for weeks.
Crucial timing for international Centre-Left The conference has been organised by one of Tony Blair's favourite former Ministers and closest advisers, Peter Mandelson, who did much to secure election of the Labour Government. Mr Mandelson says the conference comes at a crucial time for the international centre-left. What unites the delegates, he says, is their belief that conservatism must not be allowed to undermine attempts to modernise and reform. He quotes the warning voiced by the German Chancellor, Gerhard Shroder: "If we fail to modernise ourselves and our societies, then uncontrolled market forces will modernise us".
He also supports Bill Clinton's argument on the need to "reinvent government" for the modern age, not slimming down or privatising the state, but renewing and enhancing public institutions.
Peter Mandelson will preside over seven policy commissions on subjects that include public service reform, immigration and global security. In preparations for the conference, he has identified several key aims to help the UK draw up a new domestic policy agenda tackling problems which other world leaders may share. These are:
1. To recast public services for the needs of the individual;
2. To create a new welfare system that can manage the breakdown of old life-cycle structures on which much of the 20th century education, health and welfare state were founded.
3. To instigate new rules for managing migration so as to encourage legal migration and restrict migration unrelated to labour-market needs.
4. To promote transparent corporate governance to maximise wealth creation of human capital through sustained investment in training and skills.
5. To articulate a new citizenship ethic that promotes community and embeds rights and duties; and develop social programmes for tackling the causes of crime and disorder.
6. To protect and promote environmental sustainability.
Promoting individual opportunity Peter Mandelson says the world leaders must recognise that governments have a duty to make it possible for individuals to realise opportunities made available to them, so that society benefits as a whole. He cites failure to achieve a decent standard of education as not simply a misfortune for the individual but calamitous for the nation at large. The state must act as an agent of greater prosperity and social justice ? and to do that requires continuous and far-reaching reform.
The delegates will make worthy speeches but it is difficult to see how far these theories can be translated into pragmatic action to help individual nations wrestling with such dire economic challenges as Argentina faces. At least, the leaders will be able to share their hopes and fears and give lip service to greater co-operation internationally to help solve their internal problems.
President Kirchner is extending his trip to include talks in Brussels with the European Union, with the French President and Prime Minister, and with King Juan Carlos of Spain and the Spanish leader, Jose Aznar, who like President Kirchner, has his own long-running sovereignty dispute with the United Kingdom over Gibraltar. This, too, seems as intractable as ever, with the apparent failure of a proposal for joint sovereignty, emphatically rejected by the people of Gibraltar, whose wishes Britain insists must be taken into account, as must those of the Falkland Islanders.
Harold Briley, (MP) London
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