Nicolas Sarkozy

Discurso do Presidente da França, Nicolas Sarkozy
no Debate Geral da 64.ª sessão da Assembleia Geral da ONU.

Arquive-se.

New York, 23 September 2009

In speaking to you in France's name today, I am well aware that we all have a historic responsibility under the current circumstances.

This 64th Session of the United Nations General Assembly is an extraordinary occasion. In the midst of a financial, economic and social crisis that has no precedent in the history of the United Nations, and faced with the threat a global ecological disaster, we have a duty to invent a new world where the follies of yesterday are no longer possible.

Tomorrow's world can no longer resemble yesterday's.

Now we all know towards what catastrophes our obstinate attempts to solve the problems of the twenty-first century with twentieth-century ideas and instruments may lead us.

We can no longer say that we did not know.

There is a universal awareness that the path that the world has taken over the last few decades is a dead end. This awareness is born of sorrow, suffering and fear. And we are politically and morally accountable for this sorrow, suffering and fear. We are accountable to the tens of millions of men and women who have lost their jobs, their homes and their savings, to the billion human beings who are suffering from malnutrition, to the hundreds of millions who have no access to water, energy, healthcare, education, to those who fear for their future and for the future of their children, to those who feel that no matter what they do, no matter how hard they try or how much they sacrifice, they cannot get ahead. To these people we must restore hope.

Hope to those who are paying for errors that they did not make, Hope to those who are outraged by the behavior of those who still continue to grow indecently rich, after leading the world to the brink of disaster, Hope to those who fear that, if we do nothing, they will be the victims of ecological and political catastrophes brought about by the depletion of natural resources and global warming, Hope to those who are still dying in absurd wars from another age, while humankind has so many challenges to face, Hope to those whose lives are growing harder and harder, who feel that they have been lied to for so long about the real state of the world, To all those we owe an answer. We owe them an answer to their suffering, fear and outrage. And this answer cannot be that everything will go on as before. This answer cannot be that everything will start over and that we will let it.

After what we have experienced in the last year, After such a narrow escape from the collapse of the entire global economy, After such a strong disavowal of our usual thinking, our certainties and our prejudices, the task before us is a great as the achievements of the men of good will who wanted to build peace on a new political, economic and monetary world order after the Second World War.

The world will change. It cannot be otherwise. Universal conscience is calling out for this change. But will it change because collectively we are able to show that we will act together with wisdom, intelligence and courage to imagine and build a better world than yesterday's world ?

Or are we going to wait until change is thrust upon us by fresh crises that we may not be able to control. We have already waited too long.

We have waited too long to remedy excesses in finance, and we now know what disasters these excesses can cause. We have waited too long to regulate globalization. We have waited too long to fight global warming.

We have waited too long to curb nuclear proliferation. And I would like to say to the Iranian leaders that they would be making a tragic mistake in relying on the passive response of the international community in order to pursue their military nuclear program.

We have waited too long to tackle the injustice, poverty and want that plunge part of humankind into the misery and despair that fuel hatred and violence.

We have waited too long to bring peace to the Middle East by giving the Palestinian people the State to which they are entitled in the name of Law and Justice and by guaranteeing the people of Israel the right to live in security, which the tragedies of History have made so necessary for them.

The crisis requires us to be imaginative and bold.

We need new global governance for politics, economics and the environment. The most developed countries cannot govern mankind on their own. Whole continents cannot be left out, nor billions of people who now aspire to play their part on the world stage. In dealing with the crisis, we all know that the G8 would not have had the strength, authority or legitimacy shown by the G20.

We know what we need to do now:

Increase the number of permanent and non-permanent members of the Security Council. It is unacceptable that Africa does not have a permanent member of the Security Council, or to exclude South America, with such a great power as Brazil, or India with its population of one billion, or Japan or Germany. Let us at least reach an agreement on a provisional reform by the end of this year. The legitimacy of the UN is riding on this reform, as is its capacity to take action at a time when the world urgently needs the entire international community to move to address unprecedented challenges.

We need to reform the IMF and the World Bank. Voting rights need to be more equitably distributed between countries. The institutions' missions need to be redefined. It would be a mistake to limit their role to upholding an orthodoxy that has been so severely shaken by the crisis. Their role should be to watch over the economic, monetary and social balance of the world. And they must be given the resources to do so.

Reengineering the international monetary system is a huge task before us. We cannot have a system based on just one currency in a world that has become politically and economically multipolar.

We have no right to give up on the goal of carrying through the Reengineering of financial capitalism started by the G20. Because a system where the real prices of risk or rare resources are not paid is suicide.

We need to eliminate tax havens, all of them. They are hiding places for money derived from speculation and fraud.

We need to curb the price swings of commodities that are subject to excessive speculation, starting with oil, since the economic, social and human costs of this volatility are unsustainable.

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In Copenhagen, we need to commit to quantitative targets for greenhouse gas emissions. This cannot be put off any longer.

We need to set up a World Environment Organization in place of today's dozens of dispersed committees, secretariats and institutions if we want our future decisions to be fully implemented.

We need to acknowledge the legitimacy of a carbon tax border adjustment mechanism so that nobody can profit from environmental dumping.

What is at stake is vital.

We cannot let the law of trade be the only law. I believe in free trade, but there are specialized UN organizations that set fundamental standards: the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization and, tomorrow, the 5 World Environment Organization. These standards need to be applied. Between international trade law, health law, labor law and environmental law, we need to set up a system for preliminary proceedings that gives all of these standards equal weight. But we cannot ask developing countries that are so far behind and the poorest countries that are coping with so many problems to comply with these standards without assisting them in their efforts. We all belong to the same human race and we all live on the same planet. We are all concerned by global warming, by injustice, by world hunger, by disease...

So yes, we need to be able to share our technology. So yes, we will need to come up with further resources for development assistance, for stepping up social progress, for meeting the ecological challenge together. I have no qualms about saying that these resources can be raised by taxing excessive speculative gains and economic rents if necessary.

We need to change the way we measure our economic and social performance. This change is no less important or less urgent. In fact, it is necessary if we are to change our behavior. I would like to call on all countries, on all international organizations, to have the recommendations made by the commission chaired by Joseph Stiglitz implemented as soon as possible so that we do not repeat the same mistakes and misjudgments as in the past. The task is a huge one, and it is only just beginning. This is all the more reason for moving fast and going as far as possible. We have run out of time. Each of us needs to realize what would happen if we had to just go home and explain to our fellow citizens that we are incapable of reaching an agreement to solve such serious problems.

I solemnly declare that nothing would be worse that a mediocre compromise in Pittsburgh and in Copenhagen. World opinion, and the current circumstances, demande that we find a real solution to these problems and not just go through the motions.

The threats of the worst crises are not behind us, but ahead of us. We are at one of those moments in history where political decisions have a profound and lasting impact on the future. We have no choice; we must take risks and act, since the greatest risk today would be to do nothing, to let ourselves be carried along by the force of habit, to take our time.

We do not have any more time...