Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

PLENARY SESSIONS

• Opening plenary : “Debt in all its states”
• Closing plenary : “Debtocracy and capitalism, here is the way out !”

FEMINIST STRUGGLES

• “Some pedagogical tools to arm women against all kind of austerity” (interactive workshop)
• “Austerity and free-trade agreements vs. Women’s rights”
• “Feminist economic alternatives to the dominant system”

ECOLOGICAL DEBT

• “Extractivism and ecological debt”
• “Land and resources grabbing : current resistances” (interactive workshop)
• “Let’s go for COP-21 !” (interactive workshop)

DEBT IN THE SOUTH

• “Animation of string adapted to debtocracy” (interactive workshop)
• “Debt in the south : a new crisis forward ?”
• “Latin America, still rebel ?”
• “Burkina Faso : from one revolution to another ?”
• “Migration policies : how long will we keep counting the deads ?”

DEBT IN THE NORTH

• “Animation : how do banks work ?” (interactive workshop)
• “Lies and truths about social debt and social security” (interactive workshop)
• “Private debt : bubbles and resistances”
• “What about popular revolts in ex-Yougoslavia ?”
• -* “Greece : the reasons for the surrender and lessons to be learned”

AAA (Audit, Abolition, Alternatives)

• “Should we let the banks go bankrupt ?”
• “Never too big to jail !”
• “Cancelling or restructuring debts : what do the political parties think ?”
• “The relevance of citizen’s audits”
• “Animation : alternatives to debt game” (interactive workshop)

 THURSDAY 10

5:30 pm Reception

8 pm « Équateur : la forêt empoisonnée » documentary FR-SPAN

CADTM DJs !

 FRIDAY 11

8 – 9:45 am
Registration

10 – 12:30 am
OPENING PLENARY SESSION: ‘DEBT IN ALL ITS STATES’ FR-SPAN-ENGL
Theater
Debt is a key element of the capitalist system; it is the lens through which we will approach several phenomena over the weekend: food and environment crises, debt crisis in the North and in the South, social uprisings, financialisation of our lives, patriarchy…
Myriam Bourgy (CADTM – France), Amina Amzil (ATTAC CADTM – Morocco), Olivier De Schutter (UCL – Belgium), Gilbert Lieben (CGSP Wallonne – Belgium), Eric Toussaint (CADTM – Belgium)

Lunch break

2 – 4 PM
- ‘Latin America, as rebellious as ever?’ FR-SPAN
Conference room
A former laboratory for neoliberal policies, Latin America has more recently been standing at the centre of struggles and alternatives to capitalism, debt and extractivism. But have not the experiments carried out by several “progressive” governments that came to power thanks to social movements reached their limits? What kind of inspiration do they provide for a Europe in crisis?
Bernard Duterme (CETRI – Belgium), Daniel Munevar (CADTM – Colombia), Maud Bailly (CADTM – Belgium)

- ‘The utility of citizens’ debt audit’ FR-ENGL
Seminar 1
After Ecuador, Greece and Argentina, where will the next debt audit committee be set up? The answer depends on the pression of social movements and on the power of citizen debt audit campaigns. Let’s look at what is happening in Belgium, Spain, France, Mali and Latin America.
Alma Porta Lledó (PACD – Spain), Patrick Saurin (CAC – France), Laurent Pirnay (ACiDe – Belgium), Broulaye Bagayoko (CAD – Mali)

- ‘The String Game, debtocracy version’(interactive workshop)
Seminar 2
Debt is getting your head all mixed up, you want to sort things out? Come and play! A playful approach to grasp what is at stake and the consequences of the debt system.
Najla Mulhondi (CADTM – Belgium), Emilie Paumard (CADTM – Belgium)

- ‘How do our banks function?’(interactive workshop)
Seminar 3
In what context do banks operate? How do they function? What developements have they been through? How did they trigger the financial crisis? Are there alternatives?
Aline Fares (Finance Watch – Belgium), Pierre Gottiniaux (CADTM – Belgium)

Coffee break

4:30 – 6:30 pm

- ‘Never too big to jail !’ FR-SPAN
Conference room
Our struggle can also take the form of legal actions against organisations and individuals who thought they were above the law. This is the case of 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 CEOs of major private banks. We will examine the concrete possibilities developed by some social movements on the basis of such lawsuits.
Claude Quemar (CADTM – France), Rachel Knaebel (Basta ! – France), Patrick Saurin (SUD-BPCE – France), Emma Aviles (15MpaRato – Spain)

- ‘Extractivism and the ecological debt’ FR-ENGL
Seminar 1
Debt and extractivism are two weapons of a single system of oppression and exploitation. The ecological debt is the outcome of the plundering of resources of lands and populations whose sovereignty is constantly violated. Such practices are heading for disaster. We will examine the cogs of this infernal machine.
Nicolas Sersiron (CADTM – France), Renaud Duterme (CADTM – Belgium), Florence Kroff (FIAN – Belgium)

- ‘Burkina Faso: from one revolution to the next?’ FR
Seminar 2
Blaise Compaoré, prize pupil of 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 , the World Bank and neocolonialism, was ousted from power by a popular mobilisation of historic size that had been prompted by the social movement called ‘Balai citoyen’. Does the situation in Burkina, ‘land of upright people’ as Thomas Sankara had decided it would be called, testify to a new wind blowing on Africa?
Bruno Jaffre (biographer of Thomas Sankara – France), ‘Humanist’(rapper who is also a member of ‘Balai citoyen’– France/Burkina Faso), Virginie de Romanet (CADTM – Belgium)

- ‘Pedagogical tools to arm women against any kind of austerity’ (interactive workshop) FR
Seminar 3
Discover and 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. tools women developed within their collective movement to promote a collective feminist analysis of austerity, to appropriate unfriendly economic notions so as to get the better of illegitimate debts and their consequences on women’s lives.
Lorie Penninck (Vie Féminine – Belgium), Charlotte Chatelle (‘Vlà la facture!’committee – Belgium), Amandine Chatelain (‘Vlà la facture!’committee – Belgium), Christine Vanden Daelen (CADTM – Belgium)

FRIDAY NIGHT

6:30 pm Meal

8 pm Gesticulate speech ‘Radical’
Two activists who keep running from marches to demos to sit-ins with a stop at their vegetable garden while teaching full time in informal education stop for a while… to wonder to what extent their actions have helped to fight injustices whether here or elsewhere? Social and ecological struggles could be far more efficient, if we worked together more (easier said than done…) and if we adopted radical strategies. But what does ‘radical’ actually mean? They would like to hear what you think!
Sebastien Kennes (Rencontre des Continents – Belgium) and Amaury Ghijselings (Quinoa – Belgium)

 10 pm ‘Humanist’ concert

A committed rapper from Burkina-Faso, who lives today in Cergy (Paris banlieue), Humanist is a member of the social movement ‘Balai citoyen’.

DJs CADTM !

 SATURDAY 12

8:15 Yoga workshop

9:30 – 12:30 am

- ‘What about popular uprisings in former Yugoslavia?’ FR-ENGL
Conference room
Workers’ and students’ uprisings in Bosnia-Herzegovina (2014) or the big marches organised in Slovenia in 2012 and 2013 are often ignored. Yet they showed that the peoples of former Yugoslavia stand up against the neoliberal policies that have been enforced on them for 25 years. How do things stand today?
Tijana Okić (Higher Education Trade Union – Bosnia), Andreja Zivkovic (Marks21 – Serbia), Pierre Gottiniaux (CADTM – Belgium)

- ‘Migration policies: how much longer shall we count the dead?’ FR-SPAN
Seminar 1
Tragedies have turned the Mediterranean into cemetery yet ‘Fortress Europe’’ only answer is denying any responsibility and reinforcing a repressive policy with disastrous consequences. In Belgium as elsewhere the struggle of undocumented migrants has a voice.
Olivier Stein (Progress Law – Belgium), France Arets (CRACPE – Belgium), Alexis Deswaef (LDH – Belgium), Mamadou Bah (Political refugee – Belgium/Greece), José Mukadi (CADTM – Belgique)

- ‘Current resistances to the grabbing of lands and resources’ (interactive workshop) FR
Seminar 2
From the South to the North, resistances are being organised against the accumulation of an ecological debt. From farmers’ and anti-extraction movements to actions against some massive projects, all kind of activists are joining to resist and build others ways of life.  
Anna Bednik (ALDEAH – France), Larbi Hafidi (ATTAC CADTM – Morocco), Sebastien and Amaury

- ‘Lies and truths about social debt and social security’ (interactive workshop organized by ATTAC-Liège) FR
Seminar 3
What are we told about social debt and social security? We shall try to sort out charity, private insurances and true solidarity, in Belgium, in Portugal and elsewhere.
Broc (ATTAC Liège – Belgium), Eric Nemes (ATTAC Liège – Belgium), Rui Viana Pereira (CADPP – Portugal), Pascal Franchet (CADTM France)

Lunch break: Debt animation / Burkina Faso Report / Massage workshop / Juggling workshop / Walk / Foot and Frisbee

2:30 – 5:30 pm (coffee break included)

- ‘Private debts: bubbles and resistances’ FR-ESP-ANGL
Conference room
Students’ debts in the US, micro-credit facilities in Morocco, foreclosures in Spain and financialisation process in Eastern Europe: private debt is a key link in the chain capitalism uses to strangle us. Overview.
Fátima Martín (PACD – Spain), Andreja Zivkovic (Marks21 – Serbia), Amina Amzil (ATTAC CADTM – Morocco), Lauren Tooker (Debt Resistance UK – United Kingdom)

- ‘Greece : the reasons for the surrender and lessons to be learned’ FR
Theater
Under the threat of creditors, the Prime Minister and the Greek Parliament have finally capitulated to their conditions and have trampled the popular will expressed by the referendum of July 5. Why the Greek authorities have capitulated? What are the lessons to be learned ?
Eric Toussaint (CADTM – Belgium), Yiorgios Mitralias (CADTM – Greece), Dimitri Malafécas (Initiative Grèce – Belgium), Anouk Renaud (CADTM – Belgium)

- ‘Feminist economic alternatives to the dominant system’ FR
Seminar 1
How do feminists struggle simultaneously against capitalist and patriarchal oppressions? What initiatives do they set up to fight social injustices that are exacerbated by the debt crisis? How do feminist theories contribute to social changes that are likely to result in collective emancipation?
Jules Falquet (Université Paris Diderot – France), Soizic Dubot (Vie Féminine – Belgium), Carla Sandoval Carrillo (Le Monde selon les Femmes – Belgium), Christine Vanden Daelen (CADTM – Belgium)

- ‘Towards COP-21!’(interactive workshop) FR
Seminar 2
Three months before the UN climate conference in Paris, what is this other ‘last chance’ they are waving about? Where did the COP originate? What is the point of going there? What are our goals and our strategies? How shall we get organised in Belgium? Let’s take stock!  
Natalie Eggermont (Climate Express – Belgium), Pascoe Sabido (CEO – Belgium), Juan Tortosa (CADTM – Switzerland)

SATURDAY NIGHT

 5:45 – 7 pm Meeting of local and national CADTM groups

 7 pm Meal

 9 pm Theater performance ‘Système Dette’ (’Debt System’) from ACiDe Marche)

 10:30 pm DJ Miss Sirocco (Drache Musicale/Radio Panik - Bruxelles)

 SUNDAY 13

9:30 – 12:30 am

- ‘Cancelling or restructuring debts in Europe: how do political parties respond?’ FR-SPAN
Conference room
Podemos, Syriza, Les Verts, PTB – how do these various political parties that claim to represent alternatives stand to public debts in Europe? Do they support debt cancellation? Unilateral suspension of payment? Citizens’ audits?…
Miguel Urbán (Podemos – Spain), Sofia Sakorafa (Syriza – Greece), Philippe Lamberts (Les Verts - Belgium), Marco Van Hees (PTB – Belgium), Eric Toussaint (CADTM – Belgique)

- ‘South: towards new debt crises’ FR-ENGL
Seminar 1
Countries in the South have had to face structural adjustment Structural Adjustment Economic policies imposed by the IMF in exchange of new loans or the rescheduling of old loans.

Structural Adjustments policies were enforced in the early 1980 to qualify countries for new loans or for debt rescheduling by the IMF and the World Bank. The requested kind of adjustment aims at ensuring that the country can again service its external debt. Structural adjustment usually combines the following elements : devaluation of the national currency (in order to bring down the prices of exported goods and attract strong currencies), rise in interest rates (in order to attract international capital), reduction of public expenditure (’streamlining’ of public services staff, reduction of budgets devoted to education and the health sector, etc.), massive privatisations, reduction of public subsidies to some companies or products, freezing of salaries (to avoid inflation as a consequence of deflation). These SAPs have not only substantially contributed to higher and higher levels of indebtedness in the affected countries ; they have simultaneously led to higher prices (because of a high VAT rate and of the free market prices) and to a dramatic fall in the income of local populations (as a consequence of rising unemployment and of the dismantling of public services, among other factors).

IMF : http://www.worldbank.org/ policies and so-called debt relief programmes; they have also tried to break away from the hold of international financial institutions. What is their current debt situation? Has the problem been solved (as is sometimes said) or should we get ready for other debt crises in the South?
Broulaye Bagayoko (CAD – Mali), Larbi Hafidi (ATTAC CADTM – Morocco), Maud Bailly (CADTM – Belgium), Daniel Munevar (CADTM – Colombia)

- ‘Austerity and free trade agreements vs. Women’s rights’ FR
Seminar 2
How do austerity measures and free trade agreements destroy any progressive prospect in terms of gender social relationships? Let us examine together the consequences of the neoliberal agenda on women’s rights and share their inspiring struggles.
Fatima Ezzahra Benomar (Les efFRONTé-e-s – France), Sonia Mitralias (CADTM – Greece), Amina Amzil (ATTAC CADTM – Morocco), Pierrette Pape (Lobby européen des Femmes – Belgium)

- ‘Should we let the banks go bankrupt ?’ FR
Seminar 3
Since 2008 a succession of bank crisis and bailouts reminds us that banking is much too serious a business to be left in the hands of bankers. What alternatives can be proposed? New European regulations? Separating banking activities? Socialising the finance sector? Cooperatives?
Aline Fares (Finance Watch – Belgium), Frank Vanaerschot (FairFin – Belgium), Patrick Saurin (SUD-BPCE – France), Rachel Knaebel (Basta ! – France)

Lunch break

2 – 4 pm
FINAL PLENARY SESSION: ‘DEBTOCRACY & CAPITALISM, THIS WAY TO GET OUT!’
Theater
And now? What shall we do with it all? What shall we do with the illegitimate debt and its world? Let’s explore several actual experiences and possibilities of action. We cannot afford to obey any more...
Sofia Sakorafa (Syriza – Greece), Emma Aviles (Xnet – Spain), Thomas Englert (JOC – Belgium), Broulaye Bagayoko (CAD – Mali), Eric Toussaint (CADTM – Belgique)