AGRICULTURE: Talks in WTO Committee Get Off to Stumbling Start

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Mar 24 2000 (IPS) - World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations on the liberalisation of trade in agriculture got underway this week in a climate of consensus on procedural aspects, but with no solution in sight to the stand-off on the underlying questions at hand.

The WTO Committee on Agriculture reached agreement on a working programme that puts off for at least a year negotiations on the commitments that WTO member states are willing to assume towards reducing protectionism in the field of agriculture.

But the agreements on the working programme did not conceal the discrepancies between blocs of countries, which flared up to frustrate the attempt to elect a new chair of the Committee on Agriculture.

The European Union (EU), keen on taking the bite out of eventual reforms in order to maintain the subsidies shelled out to farmers by its member states, vetoed the candidacy of former Brazilian foreign minister Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim, Brazil’s representative to the United Nations agencies in Geneva.

The EU argued it could not accept a candidate from a country that formed part of the Cairns Group, which links countries that hand out few or no subsidies to farmers and are highly dependent on agricultural exports.

A broad majority of the 135 WTO member states had indicated their willingness to reach a consensus to elect Amorim, who has also presided over the UN Security Council.

But in light of the EU veto, Norwegian representative Kare Bryn, chairman of the General Council – the highest WTO body between ministerial conferences – invoked a rule that entrusts the chairmanship of the Committee on Agriculture to its immediate superior, the Council on Trade in Goods.

However, the new chair of the Council on Goods, head of Uruguay’s team of negotiators, Carlos Pérez del Castillo, will not assume his one-year duties until Apr 4.

Bryn thus decided to extend the mandate of the outgoing chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Roger Farrel of New Zealand.

Along with New Zealand and Brazil, Uruguay forms part of the Cairns Group, which is pressuring the EU, Japan and other countries to eliminate subsidies for farmers.

WTO spokesman Peter Ungphakorn said the chairmen of the General Council and the Council on Trade in Goods would continue their conversations with delegates of the countries involved in order to agree on a solution to the thorny problem of designating a new chair for the Committee on Agriculture.

A few delegates, who asked not to be identified, expressed concern over the stand-off between large blocs of countries that continues to hinder the work of the WTO, and which led to failure at the December Ministerial Conference in the US city of Seattle, Washington.

But the discrepancies did not prevent the special session of the Committee on Agriculture, which took place Thursday and Friday, from scheduling meetings for June, September and November.

Member states will have until December to submit their proposals, which will be evaluated in late 2001, before the formal stage of negotiations on the freeing up of trade in farm products gets underway.

Pérez del Castillo said he was pleased with the results of this week’s meeting, and said the discussions took place in a “positive atmosphere.” But he lamented that the dispute over the chairmanship of the committee would have negative repercussions by holding up the election of leaders of the remaining 16 WTO committees.