The Brandt report

Abstract

It must be remembered that while the Brandt Commission started its work in December 1977, the final version of its Report was written (after earlier unfruitful attempts to put together some conflicting drafts and proposals) in the late autumn of 1979; it appeared in English in mid-February 1980 and it was commented on briefly and with certain sympathy by the international mass media shortly afterwards. The Commission's work coincides with the most turbulent period of the most recent economic history, marked by the steady deterioration of not only the North-South relations but of the world's economic conditions. Thus, one can hardly be surprised that most US and European immediate comments argued that while the contents of the Report were worth reading and most recommendations sounded reasonable, the timing of its release was highly unfortunate. That timing was not of the Commission's making. The Report saw the light at the time when the interest of western industrial countries in the problems of the underdeveloped South reached the lowest point since the end of World War II due both to the serious domestic economic difficulties in the advanced countries and to the revival of the Cold War between the two superpowers. Neither should one be surprised that although the document was reported to be the subject of conversations between the Presidents of Austria and Mexico during the latter's visit to Europe last May, not much was heard on either side of the North Atlantic about the Brandt Report during the spring of 1980. The US mass media and public opinion were fully absorbed by the electoral campaign, the steep deterioration of the domestic economy and, marginally, by the issue of the hostages in Iran and the Afganistan conflict. Over the same period the European mass media and governments were occupied with no less depressing economic news coming from their side of the Atlantic; the protracted EEC squabble between London and Brussels, and the French and West German manoeuvres aimed at reestablishing political and strategic contacts with the Soviet Union without endangering the North Atlantic alliance. In this highly tense international, regional and national context there was clearly very little room for the North-South problems and even less for a serious study of the