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Wall Street Takes Note of Massive
Anti-Globalization Protest in Barcelona

Protesters Stage a Counter-EU Summit

Group Marches in Barcelona, Urging European Union Leaders Not to
Ignore Social Issues, Environment

By Brandon Michener, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal, 18 March 2002

BARCELONA - As European Union leaders sought a compromise on a
package of economic reforms, record numbers of protesters staged a
counter-summit and mass demonstration to call for greater attention
to social protection and sustainable development.

Though heads of state and government virtually ignored their causes,
several thousand protesters representing European trade unions,
environmentalists and others gathered at Barcelona University on
Saturday to warn that unregulated liberalization could undermine
European public services, social cohesion and the environment.

Speakers held up as examples of how not to do things the U.S., which
doesn't provide national health care; Britain, which privatized its
national and regional railways only to watch service suffer; and a
Spanish plan involving European Union subsidies to divert water from
the country's mountainous north to its arid south.

A Sea of Banners

The counter-summit was followed by a mostly peaceful march through
the center or Barcelona that drew some 300,000 people onto the
streets amid throbbing Latin music and a sea of colorful banners with
slogans such as "Globalized Resistance", "Against a Capitalist
Europe", "We Want Social Justice" and "Kaos=Art".

The demonstration, which was the biggest at an EU summit to date and
included the likes of French farmer-activist Jose Bove, drew as many
onlookers as active participants and was marked by intense security
that included riot police, helicopter surveillance and a small army
of voluntary peace-keepers.

Local police arrested 62 people for questioning after vandals broke
bank windows and set a car on fire, but there were no reports of
serious injuries or the widespread destruction that has marred other
recent gatherings of EU and other world leaders.

Some businesses had taken preventive measures: a Burger King adjacent
to the march's departure point removed its lighted signs and boarded
up its windows for the duration. But a Dunkin Donuts continued to
serve deep-fried dough throughout.

Although the occasion for the protests was an EU summit, most
nonprofessional protesters said they weren't against the EU per se,
but rather the impression that it over-emphasizes economic subjects
as financial market integration, electricity market liberalisation
and deregulation of telecommunications markets over political and
social schemes.

Lip Service

Indeed, the summit proved them right, paying only lip service to
issues such as the need to reduce taxes for low-wage workers, improve
mutual recognition of diplomas and professional credentials, increase
availability of child-care and generally reduce work-place
discrimination against women.

"I couldn't care less about electricity deregulation, to be honest,"
said Laurent Jayr, a clean-cut 27-year-old Frenchman who said he
works in Barcelona for a company that makes electrical cables for the
automobile industry.

He wanted to hear more about aid to developing countries and EU
enlargement, both of which he views as initiatives that could
contribute to greater peace and prosperity in the world. He also
wants to see a stronger EU defense identity to "provide a
counterweight to the United States."

Above all, Mr. Jayr said the union had to protect itself against the
"dictatorship of the big companies", which he and others accused
of setting an antisocial tone for most major EU decisions today.

"All they talk about is economics, agreed one Spanish student who
gave her name as Joana Maria (she declined to give her last
name). "We're reduced to consumers, instead of being citizens."

Protest participants clamored for actions, such as taxing financial
speculation in order to reduce the burden of social security taxes
on EU workers and encouraging water and energy conservation as
alternatives to massive environmentally suspect new public-works
projects.

John Barrier, a library assistant from Manchester who rode down with
15 other Britons by bus, said globalization risked creating a
race to the bottom in social standards, with the EU "determined to
compete with the United States on the backs of labour."

Sporting a red T-shirt with the words "Anti-Capitalist" written in
the recognizable script style of Coca-Cola, Mr. Barrier, a veteran of
previous protests in the U.K. and last year's violent G-8 summit in
Genoa, accused U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair of seeking to
"privatize everything" without regard for public needs.

EU leaders, for their part, insisted they weren't ignoring social
issues, despite the lack of concrete actions.

The summit's formal conclusions included a commitment to "preserving
high protection standards of the European social model" even as the
EU promotes economic growth and greater labor market flexibility and
mobility. They also stated that any further liberalization of
European utility markets should "take full account of the importance
of quality public services".

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