Overcoming the debt problem

42. As indicated earlier, since 1985 the international community has been managing the debt burden. Its prime concern is to avoid the destruction of the financial system which holds together the financial institutions in every country. It is thanks to this system that, in different countries, and from one crisis to another, the debts have been consolidated and all the debtors of one and the same country placed on an equal level. This is neither legal nor socially just. Conversely, all the lenders have been led to waive a proportion of their debt claims, varying in each case. This demands a great deal of fair-mindedness and vigilance so that the brave and reform-minded countries are not penalised more than others.

It is evident that the debt needs to be substantially reduced still further. But it is right that this reduction should be accompanied by reforms — in every country — to ensure that the circumstances that originally gave rise to the debt situation are not forgotten, and there is no repetition of the same mistakes including: excessive and poorly-targeted public expenditure, local private development without relevance to the national economy, excessive competition between lending and exporting countries, and encouraging unnecessary and even detrimental sales. In any case, it must be acknowledged that conditions in the mis-developing countries cannot be improved unless there is greater stability in the social and politicalinstitutional framework.