Monday, July 7, 2008

A fairly reasonable petition to the European Executive Directors of the World Bank.

Dear Friends

As a former Executive Director at the World Bank, 2002-2004; as a Venezuelan citizen of European descent; as a proud holder of a passport of a European country; and foremost as someone who harbours a deep respect for the international migrant workers and profound concerns about the future of the world at large, I respectfully ask you to consider the following:

No matter how the Chairs at Board of Executive Directors are realigned between countries all firmly anchored to their local interests, the fact is that the world itself, our planet earth, will never be sufficiently represented at the World Bank.

Given the ever more intensive global interdependence, in so many vital affairs, there is an urgent need to introduce some representation of global interests and perspectives; such as those represented by the migrant working communities, and which if all added up currently represent an economy the size somewhere between that of India and China.

Unfortunately there is no way something of this nature could be handled expeditiously through a process that requires political negotiations over the whole world; and so in this respect I ask of you the European Executive Directors at the World Bank to take turns leasing out, for one dollar, one year at the time, the voting rights of your shares in the World Bank, you can keep the dividends, in order to accommodate the continuous presence at the Board of the World Bank of a Chair that represents the views and the interests of the migrant working communities.

Europe is currently represented at the World Bank by of 8 and some years even 9 Executive Directors, out of 24, and no should be able to seriously argue that Europe would risk under-representation were it to be reduced to only having 7, or some years 8.

This petition and which of course does not imply a permanent commitment or a final reallocation of shares would, if accepted, allow Europe to speedily enact a pilot on global governance that could prove to be extremely valuable for the whole world.

Europe is of course in its right to use whatever influences they feel are appropriate in the selection of The Migrants´ Director and we would understand if this initially favours the migrant working communities in Europe, or a European migrant working community working elsewhere. That said, in time, I hope that other migrants, like those of El Salvador or Honduras and which on their own generate economic production that by far exceeds their respective homelands GDP, and are therefore of special significance, will also be provided with an opportunity to contribute with their own special global glue.