Chirac Melting the Snow in Davos

The snow kept French president Jacques Chirac from coming to Davos, but even from far away he managed to heat things up around here. During a videoconference set up from Paris – after his helicopter cancelled the flight due to the bad weather conditions – M. Chirac talked about the famous tax on international financial transactions to fight AIDS.

Jacques Chirac says it is not a tax, but a "contribution". Whatever it should be called, the fact is that it could raise ten billion dollars per year. According to the French president, this levy should not be an obstacle to normal market operation. It would be based on a very low rate, of a maximum of one thousandth, applied to a fraction of international financial transactions. It sounds quite fair, given that those transactions represent some three trillion dollars per day.

Until this point, no reactions from the audience, but then he brings up another proposition. He suggests that all the countries that maintain bank secrecy should establish a levy on flows of foreign capital in and out of their territory. This should be a way to compensate all the damage of world tax evasion to the poorest countries. Despite the freezing temperature outside, this second "approach" probably made a lot of the participants sweat...

The third suggestion from the French president is a levy on the fuel used by air and sea transportation, once they contribute to the greenhouse effect and the pollution of the planet. Another possibility concerning this same sector would be paying an extra dollar for each plane ticket that we buy. That would represent 3 billion dollars per year to finance research into a vaccine for HIV/AIDS and develop prevention campaigns .

All those ideas seem feasible and they have the support of Brazil, Chile, Spain and 110 other nations around the world. The challenge now is to convince the corporations directly affected by those measures to implement them. And no better place than Davos to start this hard talk.

-- Joana Calmon

Comments

[mike norman]

Chirac's grandiose and self-serving comments are so hollow they're ridiculous. Chirac calls for a tax to end violence, among other things, yet he wouldn't allow France to help train Iraqi security forces. He's a hypocritical jerk with a major self esteem problem.

[Paul Sagan]

There was significant crowd reaction to Chirac, at least near the back of the room, and it wasn't friendly. Lots of uncomfortable laughter and some snickering to new tax proposals. I was reminded of the last time I heard a similar reaction to a Davos plenary, and it was several years ago when people were just beginning to speak out about Nazi gold and some here failed to realize the issue was turning into a crisis and that business leaders needed to pay attention quickly. I'm not try to make a comment or claim about whether there's some sort of moral equivalency between the Holocaust and today's tragedy in Africa, but there is something eerily similar in the apparent reluctance to hear a head of state speak out on a moral issue as he's reminding the business community that it has a responsibility to help.

[EU Serf]

Jacques Chirac should shut up about helping the poor until he is ready to get rid of the common agricultural policy. It is the single biggest obstacle to development for the poor countries of the world.

They need our markets not our sympathy or our money.