Reuters - France The NGOs want the G20 talks about something other than Greece

Paris (11/2/11)Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have argued Wednesday that the G20 continues to mobilize for development despite the crisis and expressed hope that the summit in Cannes does not block the implementation by some countries in the transaction tax financial. "The G20 must not only be a G20 that solves the problems of Greece but a G20 continues to be engaged on development issues, climate and human rights," said Sam Worthington, president of Interaction, platform for U.S. NGOs. He was speaking out of the Elysee Palace, where President Nicolas Sarkozy met with representatives of NGOs from several countries to prepare the G20 summit in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes) scheduled Thursday and Friday. The summit will be preceded by emergency meetings between Europeans after Greece has decided to hold a referendum on the final aid package negotiated last week in Brussels, could call it into question. According to Sam Worthington, the French president said he would ensure that the crisis, he "believed in a certain sense complete, but (who) comes (...) is not the only focus of the discussion." NGOs in particular expect a commitment from the G20 in favor of a tax on financial transactions as a means of financing for development. Faced with such opposition from the United States and Great Britain, France, which is supported by Germany, hopes to be a "group leader" for its implementation. "What is important at Cannes is that the tax on financial transactions is not blocked by a number of countries, we can at least leave the initiative to engage the knowledge that all (...) everyone knows that there will be no unanimous decision, "said Luc Lamprire, Executive Director of Oxfam France. DECLINE OF OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE For Oxfam, this tax is even more necessary that the official development assistance (ODA) from rich countries should decrease by $ 9.5 billion by the end of 2012, the largest reduction since 15 years, because of the crisis. The organization based this estimate on an analysis of current and projected 2010-12 budgets devoted to ODA by the OECD countries shows that overall cuts of about 11.2 billion due mainly Italy, the United States, Spain and the Netherlands, the main responsibility for these cuts. These should be partly offset by a sharp increase in the contribution of Australia and one lower in Germany and the UK, whose support remains constant as a percentage of gross national income.

NGOs have also raised issues related to tax evasion, while the Global Forum on transparency close to the OECD, in Cannes hopes to publish a list of 11 countries and jurisdictions that have not established an adequate legal framework. "The list is very important but it is also important to know what the multinationals and banks in tax havens are doing . We call for a country by country reporting of what the multinationals," said Bernard Pinaud, of organization CCFD. On this point, Nicolas Sarkozy said he had asked the business leaders meeting in the B20 (Business 20) preparing to issue a statement against corruption and state that they close their subsidiaries operating in tax havens, have participants reported. Yann Le Guernigou, edited by Matthias Blamont