TRILATERAL COMMISSION
Executive Committee
Resolution
The international system is undergoing a drastic transformation through a number of crises. Worldwide inflation reflects, transmits and magnifies the tensions of many societies, while the difficulties produced by the abrupt change in oil prices are accompanied by the entry of major new participants onto the world scene.
Confrontation in an attempt to maintain the underlying assumptions of the old system could lead to a general breakdown. On the other hand, creative policies to adapt it to the new partners and conditions could extend the area of effective cooperation more widely than ever before.
Such cooperation must be based on the principle of equality. This is the core of any future political understanding.
This applies notably to the most urgent challenge, the one posed by thefundsthe funds being accumulated by the oil producers. These could dislocate the system if they are not properly absorbed. Cooperatively used, on the other hand, they are a potentially massive new source of investment in a world which will be in desperate need of capital.
In view of the proposals which have been put forward for cooperation between the oil consuming countries, and the need for cooperation alsowithalso with the oil producers, the Executive Committee —2— of the Trilateral Commission calls on the major oil consuming countries to approach the OPECOrganization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries countries in order to find out if they would consider:
- Setting up a new Bank for Fund Recycling, with subscription of an equal amount of capital and joint control by oil consumers and producers. Such parity is essential to create confidence and stability, enabling the bank to borrow funds from the OPECOrganization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries countries on an acceptable debt instrument.
- Creating a new international agency associated with the World Bank to supply the extra $3 billion a year urgently required by the most needy developing countries. This agency should borrow $3 billion a year at 8% interest from OPECOrganization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries countries and lend it to low income countries at 3%, in loans with 20-year maturities and four-year grace periods, in each of the years . The total cost of the interest subsidy required for these loans would amount to $900 million a year for the years , a sum small enough so that it should be politically feasible to raise it among the OECDOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and OPECOrganization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries countries.
These short term solutions are complementary to the need simultaneously to develop a longer term framework for international cooperation. The Executive Committee believes that this should involve a —3— tripartite global structure in which the oil producers are encouraged to invest in low income areas by joint guarantees with the highly industrialized countries. To prepare the necessary long term framework for cooperation, a tripartite conference, or series of conferences, should be organized, involving some of the highly industrialized countries from each of the three trilateral regions, some of the oil producers and some of the low income countries.
The solidity of the long term framework also requires that the major oil consuming countries cooperate on energy policies.
The Executive Committee welcomes the agreement on an International Energy Agency able to organize crisis cooperation and hopes that other countries of their regions will join the group.
It also endorses the recommendations for joint action contained in the report on "Energy: A Strategy for International Action" submitted to it and particularly the proposals for the reduction of dependence on imports, holding the annual growth of energy consumption below 2% in North America, 3% in Europe and 4% in Japan, and cooperation in developing the extensive energy reserves, actual or potential, of the trilateral area.
The success of measures to rejuvenate the international economic system are umbilically tied to successful progress towards a lasting peace in the Middle East. Such a peace settlement must be guaranteed by the United States and the Soviet Union; other countries, especially the European states, should be ready, if required, to associate themselves with them.
—4—The Executive Committee has discussed means by which the Trilateral Commission could in the future further the proposals in this resolution. Also, it has initiated a trilateral policy program on a Renovated International System, to be completed .
The Commission will hold its first Plenary Session in Tokyo in .