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The most
optimistic World Trade Organization (WTO) trade
negotiators are perhaps taking solace in the old saying.
“It is always darkest before the dawn.”
Bleak is
the word that could describe the outlook facing trade
ministers from 35 countries who set out on crucial talks
Monday aimed at reaching an agreement on the
controversial Doha Round of multilateral trade talks.
But in
sharp contrast were the conciliatory statements by many
of the ministers taking part in this week’s talks, which
are scheduled to run through Saturday with the goal of
reaching a breakthrough in the trade- liberalization
negotiations launched by the WTO in the capital of Qatar
in November 2001.
The
darkest stage of the Doha talks is occurring now, when
the final outcome of nearly seven years of negotiations
appears to lie just ahead and the participating
countries and blocs are stubbornly digging in their
heels on their bargaining positions.
The
European Union (EU), for example, said it is clear it
will make no further concessions.
The
General Affairs and External Relations Council of the
European Commission (EC), the bloc’s executive arm,
began to meet Monday in Geneva to supposedly oversee the
negotiations by its representative, Trade Commissioner
Peter Mandelson.
France,
which currently holds the EU rotating presidency, has
criticized Mandelson for purportedly intending to make
more concessions in agriculture.
“We are
the most generous in terms of market access. We cannot
go further,” said French Agriculture Minister Michel
Barnier after the EC council meeting.
Developing countries, which from the start of the Doha
Round have been fighting to eliminate the tariff
barriers and subsidies of the EU, United States and
other industrialized countries, object to the size of
the duties that European countries collect on imports of
their farm products.
Mandelson told the ministers that “in our initial offer,
we tabled a 36-percent reduction in our average
agriculture tariffs,” and that “we are now offering to
cut them by a minimum of 54 percent!”
“On
agriculture, the EU will be the major net loser in any
deal,” he declared.
The
United States took a similar line. US Trade
Representative Susan Schwab portrayed her country as a
kind of scapegoat of negotiators who criticize it for
the subsidies it shells out to its farmers, while they
avoid talking about the opening up of agricultural and
industrial markets.
The
reference to the freeing up of industrial markets
alludes to a group of developing countries, including
India, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina, which want to
limit tariff cuts in order to build up their budding
industries.
These
emerging economies also voiced their positions.
Referring to the proposed draft accord on agriculture,
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said “the text
was built on a logic of accommodating exceptions rather
than seeking ambition. Almost 30 of the paragraphs in
the agriculture text establish specific carve-outs for
specific countries.”
The text
on industrial tariffs or non-agricultural market access
(Nama), “on the contrary, was built on the logic of
forcing countries, especially developing ones, out of
comfort zones,” he said. ”Although some flexibilities
were lately introduced, the logic of the Nama still has
a totally different nature. Issues to be solved are much
more straightforward,” he added.
Argentina, for its part, once again had harsh words for
the Nama text. Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said that
“as for the Nama draft, our opinion is that the text is
not fit for this horizontal process, since the chairman
has not factored in the text the views of those
developing countries effectively reached by its
dispositions.”
Taiana
said “accepting that average cuts for developed
countries could be lower than those for developing
countries is completely out of the question.”
Criticism also came from the Group of 33 (G-33), made up
of 46 developing nations, which is demanding favorable
conditions for Special Products (SPs) that could provide
protection for small farmers, as well as the Special
Safeguard Mechanism (SSM), aimed at preventing a flood
of farm imports.
The
bloc, represented at the WTO meeting by Indonesian Trade
Minister Mari Pangestu, was disappointed by the “third
revised draft text” because it excludes the “essential
and crucial elements of SPs and SSM, constantly called
for by the G-33.”
This
standoff formed the backdrop to the start of the
ministerial meeting in which WTO director-general Pascal
Lamy is expected to present a draft agreement Friday
encompassing the two pillars of the Doha
Round—agriculture and Nama.
Over the
next five days, the ministers and other representatives
of the global body’s 153 member-states will attempt to
come up with formulas to eliminate discrepancies on the
two issues.
WTO
spokesman Keith Rockwell said that at Monday’s opening
sessions, the ministers expressed strong support for
concluding the two texts, which could speed up
convergence on the rest of the points in the Doha talks,
such as services, intellectual property and WTO rules.
Lamy
stressed “the need to conclude the Doha Round in order
to stimulate and stabilize the world economy.”
Amorim
concurred, saying, “It is important to shore up
confidence at a time when the international economic
environment is under stress.”
Nongovernmental organizations, meanwhile, complained
about the potential effects of the Doha Round.
Nathan
Irumba of the Uganda-based Southern and Eastern African
Trade Information and Negotiations Institute noted that
“when the Doha Round was launched, it was stressed that
the interests of developing countries would be at the
heart of the negotiations.”
“The
fundamental question to ask,” he added, “is whether
Africa and other developing countries will be better off
after the Round.
“Unfortunately, the deal that is on the table has little
development content. All studies, even [by] the World
Bank, have said that Africa will be worse off,” Irumba
asserted.
Sago
Indro, head of Via Campesina in Indonesia, remarked that
12 years after the creation of the WTO, “Indonesian
farmers are facing extremely difficult circumstances,
particularly in recent years, during the food crisis.
“During
the first 10 years of the WTO, food imports, like rice,
soya, wheat, meat and oranges, flooded our markets,
depressed prices for farmers, and destroyed our
production capacity,” he said.
“Now,
the price of food in the international market is very
expensive, and Indonesian farmers, who are also
consumers, can no longer afford food. Even the
government is in a difficult situation,” said Indro. |
