Belgique 1 (Sabin Alexandre)
	Report: Session 5

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Belgian report for Session 5

We started our fifth session with the reading of reports from the former sessions. We were surprised that few reports were available on the web site since the beginning of the second phase.

After the reading of the report session 4 of Great-Britain we decided to clarify some elements:

• our group doesn’t include specialist in globalisation or trade-unionists. We sometimes had to read twice or three times some pages of the material to be sure to get the sense of it.
• Regarding point 3 of your report it is to be understood that we had never heard about EWC before starting this pilot program. For what regards the translation you should not forget that we are working on English documents in a field that is not necessarily familiar to us. Moreover we are making our best to communicate our session’s report in English which is not our mother tongue.

Comments on the MAI :

MAI is AMI in French (Accord Multilateral sur l’Investissement ) and the word AMI also means « friend » ! AMI is all but friendly; it is surprising that the MAI appears now precisely when the population struggles against ultra liberalism. We all know delocalisation which causes unemployment; companies only have more profit in mind.

In the environmental field people are getting more aware of the potential damages.

MAI has appeared so suddenly and so confidentialy that one cannot help thinking that TNCs try to prevent any opponents’ reactions.

We were wandering if MAI is compatible with the Treaty of Rome especially in the field of monopoles ?

Will MAI replace or obsolete the Treaty of Rome ?

OECD is a long time organisation well structured and organised worlwide; on the opposite opponents are not structured yet and too local.

The response of the ICFTU seems sensible to us . Our governement has decided to wait for further information on the MAI before accepting any compulsary commercial treaty.

Report compiled by the group

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