World's parliamentarians call for deeper debt cancellation at Vatican Jubilee gathering

Four thousand politicians from around the world called for further action to cut the debts of the world's poorest countries when they met for the 'Jubilee of Parliamentarians' hosted by Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

The parliamentarians met in Rome for two days of debate and reflection on the theme of Jubilee. The only non-parliamentarian organisation invited to address the global gathering was the Jubilee 2000 campaign, represented by Adrian Lovett, Deputy Director of Jubilee 2000 UK Coalition, underlining the importance of the debt cancellation issue to parliamentarians from around the world. He called for a worldwide commitment to continue the fight for debt cancellation as “the unfinished business of the Jubilee Year,” and urged parliamentarians to focus on the Genoa G8 Summit in July 2001 as a deadline by which a 'new deal on debt' must be agreed.

The first motion passed by the parliamentarians undertook “to develop a more comprehensive initiative for the cancellation of the debt” going beyond the existing Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative agreed in Cologne in 1999. It stated that the HIPC initiative had “proven to have important limitations, both in view of the limited number of eligible countries, and because of the restrictive policies applied...”. It said a new initiative could include immediate cancellation for countries that have suffered natural disasters, a new understanding of 'debt sustainability' reached through a fair process, and the use of an international arbitration process to judge between the interests of creditors and debtors.

Adrian Lovett told the parliamentarians: “Debt cancellation must be deeper and must reach more countries. To make it deeper, the multilateral institutions - principally the IMF and World Bank - must cancel more of the debt owed to them. While G7 nations are now committed to cancelling 100 per cent of the debt they are owed by some countries, the institutions they control - the IMF and World Bank - are planning to cancel only 30 per cent. ... That is why I urge you to call on those two institutions to cancel 100 per cent of their debts for countries committed to poverty reduction.

He added: “There is one further opportunity for the world's leaders to act. In July next year, Italy hosts the next G8 summit, in Genoa. After the anger that swept the world at the failure of leaders to act at this year's summit in Okinawa, people from around the world are demanding something better. And those people will come to Genoa, peacefully and positively, expecting something better. I urge you to call on the world's leaders to wait no longer, but to act now to forge a New Deal on Debt - so that when they come to Genoa next July, they – and we – can say: we have acted. We have delivered. We have ended the debt crisis.”