DOCUMENTATION
Glazyev Press Conference
Excerpts from the question-and-answer portion of Sergei Glazyev's press conference of Feb. 5, 2004, have been translated by EIR from the video available from RIA Novosti, www.rian.ru. See also accompanying article.
More specifically, the key priority today in world politics, where Russia could take the lead, is the formation of a new world financial architecture. Under the pressure of the excessive emission of dollars that has taken place over the past 30 years, the world financial and economic system is collapsing. It is close to a crash. This crash will deal an enormous blow to the entire world economy and finance.
For many years, I have been warning our banking and monetary officials that Russia's excessive dependence on the American dollar, the accumulation of our currency reserves in dollars, ... was a shortsighted policy. That because of the inevitable devaluation of the U.S. dollar, the inevitable sagging of the entire world financial system due to the Americans losing control over the emission of their own currency—and today the world financial system is collapsing under the weight of this excessive supply of dollars—we should have freed ourselves from this dependence. If the Central Bank had followed my recommendations two years ago, we would have saved $20 billion, which we have lost due to the devaluation of the dollar, which continues to be dominant within our national gold and currency reserves.
Today, only Russia could offer the world a transition to a new, just and reliable world financial system, which would be based on national currencies on the basis of equality. Each of the developed countries' national currencies would have equal opportunities to participate in world trade and economic turnover. The Americans' use, or rather appropriation, of the right to issue a world currency has undermined the stability of the world financial system. But nobody can issue a challenge to the Americans, to shift to a new architecture of world financial relations. The European Union is too dependent on the United States; moreover, in the structure of how political and economic decisions are made, the weight of the United States, strange as it may seem, is greater than that of any European country. China cannot issue the challenge, because China is too dependent on the American market, and China's $300 billion in dollar reserves also deters it from acting along these lines.
Only Russia, at the present time, could 1) take active steps to transform the ruble into an international reserve currency, and 2) propose to all countries to shift to an equality-based, mutually beneficial system of financial and monetary relations, rejecting the use of the national currency of any one country as a world currency. We should get away from the excessive dependence of the world financial system on the currency issues of any one country, and shift to a system of equality-based financial and monetary relations.
This could be done in agreement with the European Union, as I proposed to Mr. Prodi when he was here for talks. I can say that, politically, the Europeans want this. And the Chinese want it, the Indians want it. In practical terms, it is possible to reach a consensus among a large group of countries and begin to move to a new world financial and monetary system that would be more stable, more reliable and more fair.
That is the first priority, which Russia could implement in world politics. After all, the pivot of world politics is world finance. And Russia's role could become very important here.... to define a principled position and achieve serious changes in the interest of the entire world community.
