ESF colours

Peace-Pace-Paz-Paix-Frieden-Vrede-Baris

OWINFS-S2B demonstrators

S2B activists

Walden & Mary Lou

Belgians

ESF demonstrators

Women on the move!

The official ESF banner: "Against war, neoliberalism and racism"

Unionists from Belgium - ambiance "bon enfant"

Friends from Oikologoi Prasinoi

Anti-war protesters

ESF final demonstration

Charly's universal flag

The clown army

On Saturday afternoon, the final demonstration of the 4th ESF took place in the centre of Athens. I was almost asleep when Marc (Maes) entered the tramway and woke me up. I was on the wrong tram line and he did not know where to go. Somehow, switching from trams to metros, we found our way to the meeting place of the demonstrators… but we were already half an hour late and we did not see any sign of demonstration. We looked around for half an hour (and were mislead by policemen twice; I think they gave us wrong indications on purpose) when, realizing we were heading to the opposite direction of the demo, we decided to take the metro again and to stop at the station where the rally would finish. It was then 16:00h and the demo had kicked off at 15:00h… We then tried to find Thierry (Kesteloot) in the mass of demonstrators since he was carrying the S2B banner. We never found him.

The demo was composed of the various groups which participated to the ESF, from World Women Marches feminists to Middle East (Muslim?) activists against the wars in Iraq, Palestine and the threats in Iran. You could also see some of the famous rainbow-coloured peace flags, flags of Maoist Kurds, all kinds of Greek and European leftist parties, no vox, Euromarches, a few Attac people, Amnesty and its campaign for “torture free skies”, unionists from Belgium (a group of 133 people from the Christian trade union ACV-CSC), etc. Friends from Oikologi Prasinoi (the Greek green party) and the French Rouge & Vert/Alter Ekolo were among the few representatives of the green movement in the rally.

Since I arrived in the demo on Victoria Park, I felt the atmosphere was somehow different from all the other demos I had participated in. Comparing to the usual drumming and shouting of Northern European demos, people today were relatively silent and so quiet… something was not right… a few hours later I realised that these were in fact the signs of tension.

We knew something was happening when we crossed a dense black smoke from burning tyres and then when our eyes started to prickle because of tear gases. Black dressed youngsters appeared from everywhere to throw Molotov cocktails towards the police, to break banks, stores and cars and a confrontation was going on in front of the America embassy, heavily protected by two rows of policemen.

It were obviously “black block” guys who had infiltrated the demonstration to create turmoil. They also started to confront with other demonstrators, especially the Italians standing at the front of the demo who tried to calm them down. Black blocks began to throw objects into the crowd and aggress people verbally and physically. But the demonstrators kept their calm and stood united… and the police seemed only to react by throwing tear gases, which was surprising given the proportion that the events were taking (I would not be surprised if these guys were actually supported by the police, with the objective to decredibilise the whole movement... we all share that kind of uneasiness since Genoa). A cameraman who had filmed the black blocks saw his camera violently smashed down. Terror was growing in the demo, as everybody feared that this could degenerate in a bigger confrontation they could not escape, and some people (including me) started to panic when they saw a new group of “casseurs” arriving. After taking refuge from the confrontations and tear gases in a park, Marc and I decided to go back into the streets as demonstrators seemed determined to march until the end of the rally.

A few minutes later, the images of property destruction and police confrontation had already travelled around the world (when I came back to my hotel room, I saw a full coverage on CNN and Greek TV stations). This is really disappointing because now, as usual, it will be the only image that the general public will remember from this ESF: ANTI. TV channels again talked about the "anti-globalisation” movement, when a lot of us had struggled to change this image into the more positive one of “alter-globalisation”.

I don’t know really who these black blocks are. People say they are anarchists but I doubt they are as, from what I know of anarchism, non-violence is really a key principle (at least in its modern forms). What could be is that they are using the anarchist ideology as a “political legitimisation” or as a “political excuse” while in fact their only agenda is negative and violent. I personally think they are nothing but a group of youngsters who get a huge kick of adrenaline from breaking symbols of capitalism and authority. I find it a very selfish behaviour in the end. I suspect that some of them are actually fascists or people with no political education. They just take advantage of massive mobilisations to fight with the police, break banks and then hide in the crowd to avoid being caught.

Luckily there were also A LOT of much more relaxed and peaceful forms of expression during the Athens demonstration, my personal favourite being the Clown Army which was present with 6 or 7 people but triggered a lot of photo shoots!

Without the S2B banner, I carried my own personal universal multi-slogan flag (see picture: Attac people were laughing at me saying that my flag could also be interpreted as a riot tool… pfff they have no imagination those Attacs!).

S2B's contribution to the assembly of social movements

Susan, Alessandro, Frédéric, Marc, Alexandra, Charly (laptop)

On Saturday morning, after the campaign assembly organized by the Seattle to Brussels Network, S2B activists drafted a declaration on corporate trade and trade liberalization to be issued after the ESF by the assembly of social movements (ASM). Several meetings took place throughout the forum to prepare the ASM which will take place on Sunday morning. The “networks” (this concept is of course very vague and many “networks” are ad-hoc and self-declared by one (!) or two friend organisations) were requested to submit their proposals in writing for the assembly (mainly consisting of “declaration” on the issue of the network and “calls for actions”). It is not clear what this will finally bring about as the ASM looks to me as a totally “unregulated” process, or perhaps regulation does exist but I only a few know the rules... The question of the representativity of this ASM, as the one of the ESF EPAs (see first post on this blog), is an issue that social movements should urgently pay attention to, now, but it will never be raised if other groups than the usual ones don’t participate in the process. How does it happen today? Two expressions characterize it well I think:
- “les absents ont toujours tort” (“absents are always wrong”, meaning that if you don’t participate to a meeting, your voice will never be heard)
- “qui ne dit mot consent” (“silence is agreement”, meaning that the you need to be vocal in order to have your ideas on the agenda)

Good laugh

Good laugh at the ESF
;-D

ESF news: Seminar on Free Trade and Unemployment

S2B seminar, ESF, Athens, Friday 5 May 2006: "Free trade a recipe for mass unemployment and the degradation of workers' rights"

ESF: anticapitalism

One solution = revolution!
(they claim)

ESF: The whole world is our home

Si les escargots portaient la Terre, on n'en serait probablement pas arrivé là!

ESF: FoEE's stall - Adrian, Charly & Virginie

FRIENDS! of the Earth

ESF: FoEE's stall - Charly & Paul

Kom onze petitie ondertekenen!
www.million-against-nuclear.net

ESF: FoEE's stall

Sign on the petition!!
http://www.million-against-nuclear.net

4th ESF banner

Another Europe is Possible!

ESF: FoEE presentation - The impact of NAMA negotiations on natural resources and the EU position

Participants of the workshop on NAMA

Andrea Baranes, Mary Lou Malig, Charly Poppe

WORKSHOP: Not in my NAMA! What is the EU’s Responsibility in the WTO Non-Agricultural Market Access Negotiations?

Athens, Thursday 4th May 2006
14:30h-17:30h
Room S106

“The impact of NAMA negotiations on natural resources and the EU position”

Presentation by Charly Poppe

Junior Trade Campaigner, Friends of the Earth Europe

As evoked by our two previous speakers (NB: Andrea Baranes, CRBM, and Mary Lou Malig, Focus on the Global South), NAMA is not only about industrial tariffs. It also includes economic sectors where natural resources are involved. The sectors include, for instance, fisheries, forestry, mining and gem products. The WTO considers these sectors as merely economic, and fish or trees are considered as nothing more than pure economic goods. The underlying logic of this blind liberalization agenda is that trade of fish or timber is actually a good thing and should be promoted further… and the NAMA negotiations at the WTO provide for a perfect framework to pursue this agenda: through the lowering or elimination of tariffs in these sectors, trade will be increased, consumers will be happy because the prices will go down, and producers will gain in efficiency (thanks to the “positive” effect of international competition and the law of comparative advantages).

In other words, for most WTO members, the question whether liberalization of trade in natural resources is actually desirable or not is not an issue anymore. The debate at the WTO is already one step ahead: it is about to what extent trade in these sectors should be liberalized, what kind of tariff lines or rates should be taken into consideration and what kind of modalities (for instance the so-called tariff “coefficients”) will finally apply to the different country groupings represented at the WTO (grosso modo: developed countries, on the one hand, and developing countries on the other).

Today, after the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference, negotiations on natural resources are on the table of WTO negotiators. However, they have not really started yet as WTO members are still discussing technicalities such as the ones outlined above.

Natural resources can be dealt with in three different areas of the NAMA negotiations:

- the general formula negotiations
- the sectoral negotiations
- the negotiations on non-tariff barriers (NTB)

In the run-up to Hong Kong and as a result of lobbying from Friends of the Earth Europe, the EU has taken a rather progressive stance on this issue. The EU has publicly stated that it will not support sector-by-sector negotiations on natural resources. This is good although it is not sufficient, as “not supporting” a negotiation does not mean “actively opposing”. And that is precisely what the EU should be doing, as did other countries such as Japan and Korea in some of these dossiers. On the other hand, this is not totally the reality of the EU position as:

1) There is no consensus among the EU member states on that (Norway and Finland are for instance in favour of sectoral negotiations on forestry)
2) The EU is pushing for an anti-sustainable agenda through the NTB negotiations, for instance recently by advocating for an elimination of export taxes and export restrictions in developing countries. Export restrictions are important in the case of natural resources as they often constitute an effective policy tool used for safeguarding a series of domestic natural resources (for instance to control the export of tropical timber, which is famous for being widely and wildly over-exploited).

Safeguarding natural resources is critical for sustainable development, in the North as well as in the South. It is also vital for the livelihoods of local communities, of fisherfolk, of indigenous people.

This is not only advocated by environmentalists and NGOs. It is also increasingly acknowledged in academic studies and even in recent studies from the World Bank. The European Commission itself has commissioned thorough studies, through a programme of so-called “Sustainability Impact Assessments” (SIAs), that give very clear indications of the potential negative impacts of trade liberalisation in natural resources, in particular in the forestry and fisheries sectors. But so far the EU has never taken these studies seriously. This is a shame and we have been encouraging the Commission to do more with these SIAs.

Our natural resources are a public good. Our natural resources are not for sale.


Charly Poppe
Athens, 4 May 2006

ESF news: ESF Day 1

After a few initial hesitations, delays in registrations, computer problems, (very) long queues and stalls still being set up, the 4th ESF has now taken full speed this afternoon. A working atmosphere for those involved in seminars and workshops, joyful celebrations for old activist friends meeting each other again after one and a half year (the last one was in London in October 2004), campaigners’ optimism for others. As usual, all kinds of papers can be found everywhere n the forum, for people try to promote the best they can their organisation and their activities. The result is that most people usually throw these papers away, anywhere, and without reading them (because they had been forced to take them). This obviously creates massive waste, which I am not sure it does actually go in the recycle bin as the environmental management of the forum does not seem so successful.

This is not new: radical leftist groups are this year again very present. This is obvious as soon as you enter the ESF site: revolution is everywhere. It is also very much reflected in the programme of the forum itself. Green organisations and pluralistic or apolitical NGOs are clearly a minority at this forum. The risk of this trend is that the ESF process be more and more associated with the political ideology of radical socialism, when in fact the original idea of the social fora was to propose a space for free speech and constructive dialogue to different groups, networks and initiatives of civil society. A large part of that risk lies in the probable simplistic treatment that the media will make of such an information.

Today, Friends of the Earth Europe have directly been involved in one workshop on the WTO’s Non-Agricultural Market Access Negotiations (NAMA). The workshop was successful, approximately 10 very "participative participants" attended and the discussion was lively, thanks notably to the great input of Andrea Baranes from Campagna Riforma Banca Mondiale and Mary Lou Malig from Focus on the Global South. Pictures of the event and Charly’s own presentation (the impact of NAMA on natural resources) will be posted separately.

Other activities organised today by the Seattle to Brussels (S2B) Network included seminars on a) trade negotiations in services, Bolkestein and public services and b) EU Regional Trade Agreements. Reports of these activities will be sent tomorrow if available.

The S2B network will again have an internal meeting tomorrow at lunchtime (we had a first meeting today) to discuss its participation and its input in the “public services pool” (a sort of new network of organisations concerned by public services) and in the “assembly of social movements” (a process traditionally linked to the ESF where joint international campaigns or actions are being discussed and decided upon).

ESF news: FoEE seminar on GMO trade war, Friday 5 May, 10:00h

THE TRANSATLANTIC GMO TRADE WAR:
WHAT IS AT STAKE?

Friday 5th May
10:00h-13:00h (slot 1)
Room E 204

Outline:
The US, Argentina and Canada filed a complaint at the WTO against the European moratorium and the national bans on GMOs. The interim report was released in February 2006 and the final ruling is expected at the end of March, therefore at the time of this workshop will happen the final verdict might be known.
The seminar intends to analyse the impacts of the ruling in Europe, in developing countries and in the development and implementation of the Biosafety Protocol.
The seminar intends to highlight which are the corporate driven- force behind this disputes and why WTO is the wrong place to rule about GMOs. The seminar will also present the situation of GMOs in Europe.
The objective of the seminar is to raise awareness about this dispute, GMOs and the WTO. The result of the ruling is a key opportunity to campaign against negative impacts of the WTO and build up public opposition to the GM crop and food.

Thematic area:
Agriculture

Organisers:
Friends of the Earth Europe
Greenpeace International
Greenpeace Greece
Attac Greece
Attac Austria
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Confédération Paysanne

Moderator:
Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth Europe

Speakers:
José Bové, Confédération Paysanne
Alain Lipietz, Member of the European Parliament (Greens, French)
Geert Ritsema, Greenpeace International
Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth Europe
Astrid Konrad, Attac Austria

Languages:
English, French, Greek

ESF news: NAMA workshop, 4 May 14:30h

NOT IN MY NAMA!
WHAT IS THE EU’S RESPONSIBILITY IN THE WTO
NON-AGRICULTURAL MARKET ACCESS NEGOTIATIONS?

Thursday 4th May
14:30h-17:30h (slot 2)
Room S106

Outline:
This workshop will look at the ‘Non-Agricultural Market Access’ (NAMA) negotiations at the WTO and at the state of play after the Hong Kong Ministerial (December 2005) with a focus on the current position of the European Union in these negotiations. Participants will know more about the impact of the NAMA negotiations on livelihoods, jobs and the environment. The objective of the workshop will be to share experience, to advance alternative policy proposals and to engage the participants in campaigning and advocacy activities towards their government or European representatives.

Thematic area:
Europe in Neoliberal Globalisation

Organisers:
Seattle to Brussels Network

Moderator:
Charly Poppe, Friends of the Earth Europe

Speakers:
Mary Lou Malig, Focus on the Global South
Not in my NAMA? Why NAMA negotiations are harming the poor in the global South

Andrea Baranes, Campagna Riforma della Banca Mondiale
The EU position in the NAMA negotiations

Charly Poppe, Friends of the Earth Europe
Why NAMA negotiations threaten natural resources

Discussion. Some items:
Is there a common threat or are there only but conflicting interests between developing and developed countries?
Are the winners and the losers the same all over the world?
What can we do?

Language:
English

ESF news: ESF-1

ESF-1

The 4th ESF has officially opened today with an antiracism concert on the Town Hall Square in the centre of Athens. People from all over Europe have started to arrive in Athens and register for the forum, which is located in the premises of the basketball stadium used during the 2004 Olympic Games. Many of the participants I have seen “migrating” to the ESF are youngsters who came with friends and sleeping bags. Friends of the Earth activists have not arrived yet, but we expect many of them t arrive tomorrow. They will participate in the activities of the forum (workshops, seminars, cultural events…) and will also help with FoEE’s stall, particularly, in collecting signatures for our big anti-nuclear campaign: One Million Europeans Against Nuclear Power: http://www.one-million.net
I have registered for my organization – Friends of the Earth Europe – and have started to set up our stall. I have met with friends from Ecologist Greens (the Greek green party) who have kindly receipted and transported our campaign material from their office in the centre of Athens to the ESF venue. I also met up with other fellow campaigners who also arrived earlier to avoid the expectable mess of the forum’s first day.
The full programme of this ESF is available online: http://athens.fse-esf.org/program-en

Tomorrow, Thursday 4th May, I will participate in an internal meeting of the Seattle to Brussels Network at 12:00h to prepare our activities at the ESF, and particularly our campaign assembly scheduled on Saturday morning. Then, at 14:30h, I will chair and speak at a workshop on WTO’s NAMA negotiations (non-agricultural market access).
More details about this workshop will be given in a next post.

Navplio

Navplio... nothing really striking (full of hotels, pensions, tavernas, bars and that kind of stuff.... tourism)

Mycenae

View of the Mycenae landscape from the ancient citadel: so peaceful... and strong!

Epidavros theatre

Another view of the famous theatre of Epidavros

I stayed there for at least two hours... enjoying the magnificence... the acustic in this place is phenomenal!

Hydra harbour

View of Hydra's harbour... the weather was "kousikousa"

Heaven

I'm in Heaven!

Monastry of Prophet Elias... on the top of Hydra's mystical hill

Mystical Hydra

My journey on the hills of Hydra... quite surrealistic

Epidavros

Epidavros theatre... magical!

Navplio-Athens

Tomorrow morning I leave to Athens with the bus. It will be a 3-hours ride. I will now spend my second night in Navplio, one of the biggest towns of Higher Peloponnese, and also very crowdy on the week-ends (as I had experienced yesterday)! Yesterday, I could'nt do nothing because of 1st May. But during dinner in the restaurant, I saw a wonderful improvised concert of buzuki (one normal guitar and one Greek guitar). Very nice athmosphere!
Today, I made two great visits, as reported earlier.
I don't manage to post any pictures in this bl.... internet cafe. Once I get in Athens, the equipment will be a bit better, I hope.

Kalinichta to all of you!

Mycenae - Epidaurus

Great visits today: Mycenae, an ancient citadel dating from the Mycellenic period (1300 AC!!) on the top of a hill, and Epidaurus, a site with the ruins of the first hospital of history and, above all, with the best conserved theatre of ancient Greek history. The theatre, a typical Greek-style hemicycle, can host up to 12,000 people! It dates from approx 400 AC.
Just amazing.

Hydra la mysterieuse

Hydra est effectivement jolie, quoique bourree de touristes, surtout des Grecs qui y viennennt pqsser le WE (c'est un long WE).
Pas de message hier car l'internet etait vraiment trop cher: 7 EUR de l'heure!
Bon, apres avoir fait le tour du petit port (c'est petit mais mignon: un dedale de ruelles et de jolies places, le tout pave), j'ai dejeune (une bonne soupe au poisson) et me suis ballade a l'aventure dans les collines. Alors la, pour une aventure, c'etait une aventure!! Une balade de quatre heure, dont la moitie tout en montee. J'ai abouti dans les nimbes encerclant les cols de Hydra (vous verrez une photo plus tard), avec au bout du chemin un monastere. Au monastere, la vue sur la mer est suppose etre splendide mais avec les nuages (ou le brouillard?...), chnol! Tout ce qu'il y avait a voir c'etait une petite eglise au centre de la cour. Sur la route, des anes, des chevaux (pour la montee)... Etrange excursion. Aujourd'hui, je sens mes mollets!

Poros in the rain

Poros (view from Galatas)

:-((

Hydra

Je pense que j'avais fait le tour de Poros, et puis il s'est mis a dracher de facon phenomenale. Dimanche matin (hier) j'ai donc decide de poursuivre mon parcours et de me diriger vers Nauplie (Nafplio). Pas de bol, comme si le deluge ne suffisait pas, voici que le bus a Galatas ne roule pas, ni le dimanche, ni d'ailleurs le lundi car c'est le 1er mai (il m'a fallut demander a au moins dix personnes et me taper un petit dejeuner pas franchement bon avant d'avoir la bonne information). Galatas est un petit port de peche pas tres joli situe de l'autre cote de la rive face a Poros (sur le continent). Le seul interet, ce sont les bus qui y partent vers le reste du Peloponese. Bon, comme tout est bloque a Galatas, je me resigne a prendre le petit bateau pour retourner d'ou je viens, de l'autre cote, sur l'ile de Poros. La, apres enquete, il s'avere que l'option la plus interessante pour ne pas rester bloque a Poros est de prendre le "Flying Dolphin" (hydroglisseur) pour Hydra, d'y rester la nuit et puis le lendemain eventuellement bouger encore (si tout n'est pas bloque a cause du 1er mai).
Et voila que je me retrouve a Hydra, sans vraiment l'avoir prevu. Mon guide (GDR) m'avertissait: "Le plus beau port de toutes les iles grecques, mais aussi un des plus frequentes", et comme j'essaie d'eviter la foule...