Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

The CADTM’s International Council, which meets once a year, enables us to assess the global political situation and the progress of the network’s work.

The previous meeting of the CADTM International Council took place a year earlier in Marrakech on the eve of the counter-summit against the World Bank World Bank
WB The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states’ contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.

It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :

1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 189 members in 2017), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;

2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;

3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.

As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries’ payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMF’s therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.

and the IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org . We would first like to thank the volunteer interpreters who made it possible for us to hold this meeting. We would also like to thank the Aquilone, which welcomed us for these three days. Thanks also to Casa Nicaragua and Cafétéria Collective Kali for their hospitality during the Autumn Meetings and the International Council.

We spent the first day presenting and discussing the various crises facing capitalism, as well as examining emerging social and political resistance around the world. Here is an overview of the main crises discussed:
 
•Ecological crisis: The effects of climate change are hitting populations in the South harder and harder, increasing vulnerability and injustice.
•Food crisis: The alarming rise in the number of people suffering from hunger is evidence of an increasingly critical situation.
•Global economic crisis: A fall in the overall growth rate, particularly marked in the countries of the North. Countries like India and China continue to drive the global economy, which is at half-mast.
•Financial crisis: The financial sector has not undergone reform or cleanup since the 2007-2008 crisis. We are witnessing a hypertrophy of finance, which is leaving the global economy weakened. This growth is based on speculative bubbles, while production continues to lag.
•Trade crisis: After booming in the 1990s and 2000s, world trade is now growing very slowly. Trade tensions between the US and the EU, on the one hand, and China, on the other, have intensified, leading to a resurgence of protectionist policies. This is because the EU and the US are struggling to keep up with China’s competitive advantage, particularly in the fields of solar panels and electric vehicles.
•Crisis of multilateral institutions: The WTO WTO
World Trade Organisation The WTO, founded on 1^st January 1995, replaced the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT). The main innovation is that the WTO enjoys the status of an international organization. Its role is to ensure that no member States adopt any kind of protectionism whatsoever, in order to accelerate the liberalization global trading and to facilitate the strategies of the multinationals. It has an international court (the Dispute Settlement Body) which judges any alleged violations of its founding text drawn up in Marrakesh.

is paralysed by the failure of the Trump administration to appoint judges, and the UN, which has been ignored on environmental and geopolitical issues, is seeing its influence decline.
•Geopolitical crisis: Major conflicts persist, particularly in Palestine and Lebanon, Ukraine, the DRC, Sudan and Yemen.
•Social crisis: Some parts of the world are experiencing a resurgence of inequality. While the richest are accumulating unprecedented fortunes, the most precarious sections of society are sinking into poverty. A steady erosion of workers’ rights accompanies this trend.•Dispossession by debt: To uphold the consumerist model, consumer credit is expanding, trapping more and more people in debt and increasing the risk of repossession or eviction for unpaid debts.
•Debt crisis: Debt levels in countries of the South and North have reached record levels. With rising interest rates Interest rates When A lends money to B, B repays the amount lent by A (the capital) as well as a supplementary sum known as interest, so that A has an interest in agreeing to this financial operation. The interest is determined by the interest rate, which may be high or low. To take a very simple example: if A borrows 100 million dollars for 10 years at a fixed interest rate of 5%, the first year he will repay a tenth of the capital initially borrowed (10 million dollars) plus 5% of the capital owed, i.e. 5 million dollars, that is a total of 15 million dollars. In the second year, he will again repay 10% of the capital borrowed, but the 5% now only applies to the remaining 90 million dollars still due, i.e. 4.5 million dollars, or a total of 14.5 million dollars. And so on, until the tenth year when he will repay the last 10 million dollars, plus 5% of that remaining 10 million dollars, i.e. 0.5 million dollars, giving a total of 10.5 million dollars. Over 10 years, the total amount repaid will come to 127.5 million dollars. The repayment of the capital is not usually made in equal instalments. In the initial years, the repayment concerns mainly the interest, and the proportion of capital repaid increases over the years. In this case, if repayments are stopped, the capital still due is higher…

The nominal interest rate is the rate at which the loan is contracted. The real interest rate is the nominal rate reduced by the rate of inflation. , these countries find themselves in a downward spiral of repayment, encouraging a new wave of austerity policies and the return of the IMF. China actively participates in the Global South, providing emergency loans to prevent payment suspensions.
•The crisis of democracy and the rise of the far-right: Faced with growing protests from populations suffering harsher living conditions, governments are increasingly resorting to authoritarian measures to impose their authority. Simultaneously, the xenophobic rhetoric of the far right, which targets migrants and the most vulnerable, increasingly attracts sections of the world’s population.

In addition to these crises, we are now witnessing a problematic consolidation of capitalism. After the capitalist victories of the 1990s, marked by the fall of the USSR and the birth of the WTO, socialist and progressive initiatives emerged in the 2000s and early 2010s, led by figures such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. We have seen the capitulation of Syriza in Greece in 2015; the moderate turn of Rafael Correa in Ecuador from 2011–2012; and the loss of momentum of the World Social Forum, Occupy Wall Street, and the Indignados in Spain.

Recent years have seen the rise of the far right: Duterte in the Philippines, Modi in India, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Milei in Argentina, Trump in the United States, Salvini and then Meloni in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands... to name but a few. At the same time, although feminist movements (MeToo), climate movements (Youth for Climate), and anti-racist movements (Black Lives Matter) emerged in the late 2010s, their concrete progress remained limited. In West Africa, several governments that came to power following coups have tried to break with the former colonial powers but remain dependent on international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.

Faced with this panorama of crises and the rise of authoritarian, ultraliberal, and xenophobic movements, it is more than necessary to recreate an international space for coordinated struggles to regain ground and defend emancipatory alternatives. CADTM International is actively supporting the convening of a first-world anti-fascist conference in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from 15 to 18 May 2025.

The International Council concluded its first day with lively discussions that led to several major conclusions:
• Capitalists are succeeding in hijacking the rhetoric of questioning the economic system by redirecting it against minorities and the most precarious populations. This is helping to fuel the rise of the far right while, at the same time, encouraging a rollback of the welfare state and associated protections.
• This instrumentalization involves reactionary movements, often backed by big business, that take control of the media and social networks. Bolloré’s France and Berlusconi’s Italy are flagrant examples of the conquest of space for expression.
• Rhetoric that stigmatizes poor populations, often equating them with criminality or comparing them to pests, is gaining traction in several countries, including the Philippines, El Salvador and the United States. Such rhetoric justifies repressive security policies and invokes methods that precede massacres or genocides, as was the case in Rwanda between 1992 and the 1994 genocide.
• Social movements, including the CADTM, are suffering the effects of this capitalist offensive and are struggling to maintain their influence. This is partly because a fringe of the left has opted for neo-liberal policies or has simply given up occupying the public debate.
• In this context, it is imperative that we remain attentive to the quality and veracity of the information we share Share A unit of ownership interest in a corporation or financial asset, representing one part of the total capital stock. Its owner (a shareholder) is entitled to receive an equal distribution of any profits distributed (a dividend) and to attend shareholder meetings. , ensuring that our sources are solid and credible.
• It is clear that neither the traditional imperialist powers (the United States, Western Europe, and Japan) nor the BRICS BRICS The term BRICS (an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) was first used in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, then an economist at Goldman Sachs. The strong economic growth of these countries, combined with their important geopolitical position (these 5 countries bring together almost half the world’s population on 4 continents and almost a quarter of the world’s GDP) make the BRICS major players in international economic and financial activities. countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have a real interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. in promoting Africa’s industrialization or building its sovereignty. For the major powers, Africa is, above all, a vast reservoir of raw materials and cheap labor, perpetuating the dynamics of exploitation.

The discussions highlighted the need to step up our vigilance, adopt strategies of resistance in the face of the neoliberal offensive, and continue to defend emancipatory perspectives in the face of growing oppression and domination.