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invitation to the counter summit - ENGLISH
invitation

------------------------- THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM EUROPEAN ECONOMIC SUMMIT Warsaw, Poland April 28-30, 2004

On the eve of accession to the European Union (significantly planned for May 1 to change the nature of that holiday), the European Economic Summit (which was cancelled in Dublin due to planned protests) is coming to Warsaw. In the meantime, Polish anarchist and left-wing movements are going to organise an Alternative Summit, which will include demonstrations, discussions, happenings, direct actions etc. A detailed plan of events (from 28 of April to 1 of May) is just now under construction, but today we would like to invite you to the main demonstration against EEF which is going to take place on the 29 of APRIL in WARSAW.

Contact with organisers in English:  szymon666@poczta.onet.pl

Information concerning discussion part and preliminary programme below:

On this occasion, we would like to great the Summit not only with protest but with criticism and alternative visions. It is with this aim that we are calling for participation in an Alternative Economic Forum. The Forum will be open in nature and it is our intention to attract an audience from the general public as well as the activist community. The Forum will consist mainly of two sorts of events: lectures or presentations and discussions/ workshops. Other events may be included but the main focus shall be on advancing a critique of current economic trends and practices and proposing radical alternatives to them. In particular, we would be interested in addressing at least some of the issues to be discussed at the Summit.

We feel that the following topics should be addressed during the Alternative Forum:

Labour Markets

- Structural Reform in Western Europe in Light of European Enlargement

- The Stability Pact - What it Means

- Business and the Future of Capitalism in an Enlarged EU

- The Impact of New Investment in Accession States

- The Situation in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey

- Russian Economic and Geopolitical Strategy in Light of EU Enlargement

- Proposals for additional topics are extremely welcome.

The following topics have been announced for discussion at the European Economic Summit: - Economic Outlook: Does Western Europe's downturn call for structural reform? - Eurozone Economics: What are the political implications of a two-speed Europe? - The Common Agricultural Policy: Can it be reformed enough to meet the demands of enlargement - The Future of the Stability Pact: Propping up a cornerstone of the EU - Beyond Enlargement: What will be the timetable for the next round of accession negotiations? - Effects of an Expanded Union on Business - The Regulatory Environment - Attracting Investment - Labour Markets - Risks and Liabilities: How can foreign companies evaluate and manage the new risk environment? - Europe in the Geopolitical Context - Transatlantic Relations: What difference does enlargement make? - Banking and Financial Services - Consumer Markets in Central Europe - The Oil and Gas Industry in the New Europe - Infrastructure: How much will be distributed through transfer funds?

At this point we would like to invite organizations and individuals to support this initiative by:
- passing on this information to other interested parties
- agreeing to organize a talk or other event

We are accepting abstracts or short summaries of proposed events. The languages of the presentations are open to negotiation. Summaries should include the subject matter, form of event, name of speaker(s) or organizers, time and space expectations and language(s) of the main organizers.

Please send proposals or queries of interest by February 28 to:  cube@zigzag.pl
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The implication of the World Bank and the World Economic Forum (WEF) in making political decisions in Poland is poorly known. At the upcoming WEF summit in Warsaw (28-30 April 2004) it's likely that there will be organised debates at an Alternative Economic Summit.

Not many people are aware that institutions like the World Bank and the World Economic Forum (WEF (pl)  http://manufaktura.pl/attac/?dzial=teksty&nr=149) have a significant role in making socio-political decisions in Poland. This role can be seen, for example, in the "obfuscation strategy", in writing new laws without participation of the Welfare Ministry, in the strategy of hiding the results of the World Bank's failed experiments in Latin America, and in the "divide and conquer" strategy in the reform of the retirement pension scheme "ZUS" ((pl) + (en)  http://pl.indymedia.org/pl/2003/12/3440.shtml). Next time these strategies might fail if there a re transparent, horizontal communication methods used among citizens.

It's likely that at the time of the upcoming European Economic Summit in Warsaw (28-30 April 2004), that apart from decentrally organised protests ((pl)+(en)  http://www.alter.most.org.pl/wef) there will also be an Alternative Economic Summit ((pl)+(en)  http://www.alter.most.org.pl/aes). There will be discussions on alternative economic models like, for example, the participative economy (parecon) ((en)  http://www.parecon.org/), LETS ((pl)  http://www.lets.pl/) and other methods of defending Articles 1, 2 and 22-25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights ((pl)  http://www.amnesty.org.pl/biblioteka/pdpcz.html).

There is some chance that just as happened in October 2003 in Dublin, the WEF meeting might be cancelled. But you should be prepared in any case for media battles. Don't just use Indymedia Poland, but also use any of the Indymedia network or pages like Smash WEF! (  http://www.smashwef.ch/), the Polish language mailing list ((pl)  http://www.most.org.pl/pipermail/neoeconomicus), discussion lists on most.org.pl ((pl)  http://www.most.org.pl/), poprostu.pl
((pl)  http://poprostu.pl/), prawda.pl ((pl)  http://prawda.pl/), ichuj
((pl)  http://www.ichuj.org/), Kupuj Odpowiedzialnie! (Buy responsibly!)
((pl)  http://www.ekonsument.pl/), ATTAC Polska ((pl)  http://www.attac.pl/) and
Recykling Idei (Recycling Ideas) ((pl)  http://www.recykling.uni.wroc.pl/). You can also get information from our wiki ((pl)+(en)  http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/WEFinWarszawa). But it would be good to make more independent web and wiki pages on the Alternative and European Economic Summits.

If you can help with improving synthesis of existing information, please edit the World Bank entry ((en)  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=World_Bank&action=edit) and the WEF entry ((en)  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=World_Economic_Forum&action=edit) on the open content encyclopia, the Wikipedia, either in the English-language version ((en)  http://en.wikipedia.org) or in any other language version ((de)  http://de.wikipedia.org, (fr)  http://fr.wikipedia.org, (nl)  http://nl.wikipedia.org, ...)
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