Introductory Speech of the Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek at the EU-LAC Summit in Lima, Peru, Delivered on 16.5.2008

Ladies and gentlemen, I am greatly honoured and it is a challenge for me to have an opportunity to moderate today's working table. I would also like to introduce my dear colleagues, who will in their ten-minute contributions present their national experience with our main topic.

The topic of today's working table is the social and economic consequences of poverty, inequalities and exclusion, or – as we, members of the EU say hideously, the social cohesion. Latin America is still a region with the highest inequality rate in the world – 40% of inhabitants, which represent 200 million people, are still living in poverty. Latin America is experiencing persistent 5% growth in last five years. This growth is on the one hand rather artificially caused by sale of raw materials (oil, ore, and minerals) and their growing prices; on the other hand it is also a result of goal-directed economic and structural reforms of the Latin American governments. Resources arisen from that relatively enormous growth are in one case consumed unequally, in the worse case are redistributed to the poorest people without any motivation and in the third case serve for education development, growth of job opportunities and for eliminating the poverty. Only the last way leads to the target. As the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic which, forty years of the communist totality, chose in the last twenty years just the third way, I am convinced of it. I am of the opinion that this process may be feasible in case of opening economy through national means and forces in case of friendly economy prepared for inflow of foreign investments. Therefore I am convinced that only open and democratic society based on protection of human rights and private ownership, which will bring the poorest people security and higher level of education and better opportunities to be successful on the labour market, is the universal formula for removal of poverty. Allow me to finish my speech with words of German philosopher Karl Popper, a compatriot of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of country which is now a model country as far as social security and social inclusion are concerned. He is an author of the work Open Society and it's Enemies: "Governments should focus rather on decrease of suffering than to try to do something good." Freedom, security, and openness are equal to prosperity and social security. Now, let me give the floor to my colleagues. A discussion will follow after their contributions. I would like to ask you to limit your contribution to three minutes.