PRESS RELEASE
Schiller Institute Conference in Paris: Rebuilding the World in the BRICS Era
June 18, 2015 (EIRNS)—On June 13 and 14, eminent representatives of three of the five countries which make up the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa)—and of countries associated with them, were invited to Paris, to speak at an exceptional international conference of the Schiller Institute on the theme: “Rebuilding the World in the BRICS Era.”
The aim of this conference, which gathered about 500 people, was to bring to France and to Europe, the winds of progress now blowing over the BRICS and their allies. This will help Europe rise against an international order which has nothing more to offer, other than the return of Empires; the war of all against all; and the systematic looting of populations and public goods.
The conference sharply attacked the Malthusianism spread by the “climate change” swindle, and the UN Climate Change conference (COP 21) currently being organized in France. That Malthusianism is the mortal enemy of the development of the BRICS and of the rest of the planet.
War, or Peace through Economic Development
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, keynoted the conference by outlining the perils ahead of us. These are a financial crisis that could rapidly turn into an implosion of the system, as we move toward the final issue of the Greek crisis by the end of June; and the growing threat of war, including nuclear war, against Russia and China. The source for that war drive in the Anglo-American camp is the neo-conservative ideology of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which proclaims that no other power should be allowed to rival the global power of the British Empire’s Anglo-American relationship.
In that context, Lyndon LaRouche addressed a video message to the conference. In it, he supported the protests of three high-level German figures: two former German Chancellors, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder, and the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, against Chancellor Merkel’s refusal to invite Vladimir Putin to the last G7 summit.
Zepp-LaRouche, however, was optimistic in presenting the BRICS, the New Silk Road of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the Eurasian Economic Union, as the alternatives to those dangers. She also noted that for at least 25 years, her institute has been contributing to build those alternatives, by proposing, since the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an international order of peace through mutual development for the Twenty-First Century—based on the launching of infrastructure corridors across Eurasia.
Russia, China, and India
The representatives of Russia, China, and India (the three of BRICS countries present at the conference, since Brazil and South Africa could not send representatives), gave the conference a sensuous idea of the “polycentric” world, the embryo of the new, more just international economic order that they are fighting for. It is now coming into being at breathtaking speed. The Ambassador of Iran to France, his Excellency Ali Ahani, also sent a message, indicating that the Islamic Republic of Iran is “willing and ready to cooperate with the BRICS countries in order to contribute its aid and cooperation to the solution of regional and world problems.”
Russia became Acting President of the BRICS in April, and Leonid Kadyshev, Minister Counsellor of the Russian Embassy in Paris, listed the priorities that the Russian Presidency will announce at the upcoming BRICS summit, at Ufa (Russia) on July 9 and 10.
Before the summit is convened, the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), adopted at the Fortaleza summit in 2014, will be launched, since their ratification process is “going well,” he reported. A road map will be adopted defining precise investments in infrastructure projects, as well as a new axis of cooperation in areas such as “mining, energy and communications.”
Professor Shi Ze of the China Institute of International Studies, then went through the different goals of China’s New Silk Road: solving internal economic imbalances between its eastern and western regions, and improving its foreign trade with its western neighbors (Central Asia, India, and Russia). These can contribute to meeting China’s great energy needs for its development. But the same “One Belt, One Road,” strategy, is also China’s contribution to the world in the Confucian tradition: to create via “the development of the Eurasian continent, ... a new locomotive for growth in the world,” and to “reinforce peace and worldwide security.”
An important contribution followed from Indian former Ambassador Viswanathan, Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, who is the coordinator of all its activities connected with the BRICS. In view of the fact that the BRICS represent 25% of the world’s GDP, but only 11% of the voting rights in the IMF, he denounced the “completely anachronistic character ... of the IMF, the World Bank and the Security Council of the UN.”
Rather than only aspiring for a better order, the BRICS have now become an active force, setting the international agenda so as to bring that order into being. Two examples are the creation of the NDB, and that of the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which Viswanathan pointed to as the first world institutions created in 200 years without the participation of the West.
The future is “looks bright” for the BRICS, he said, adding however that “the BRICS is work in progress and not a finished product.”
The two days of intense discussions included hundreds of Frenchmen, and delegations from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Australia, Poland, Romania, Russia, China, and Peru, among other countries. Participants understood that they were not attending any ordinary conference, but rather were participating in an ongoing international fight for their survival and that of the human race. An extensive report on the Conference proceedings, including the major speeches, will appear in EIR No. 25, dated June 19.
