TRADE: WTO Suffers Snags in Bid for New Round of Talks

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

DOHA, Nov 13 2001 (IPS) - A new draft of the final declaration of the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) still fails to placate developing countries, jeopardising the meeting’s chances of launching a new round of multilateral trade negotiations.

The latest revised text of the Draft Ministerial Declaration sparked controversy because it puts brackets around the phrase referring to the “phasing out” of all types of farm subsidies, state support the European Union (EU) actively defends.

The brackets indicate that the enclosed text remains subject to modification, and have caused frustration for many of the delegations from developing countries.

Murasoli Maran, India’s trade minister, criticised the document, saying it does not give due consideration to the concerns and difficulties that his and other delegations had pointed out, particularly those related to investment, competition, trade facilitation, and transparency in government procurement.

The four points India challenged are known as the “Singapore issues” because they were introduced for the first time in WTO negotiations at the first ministerial conference held in that Asian city in 1996.

The EU and the United States are pushing for the conference in the Qatar capital, slated to end at midnight Tuesday, to give the green light for talks on these issues, which would open the way for a new round of trade liberalising negotiations.

The Third World Network (TWN), a non-governmental organisation based in Malaysia, and with offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America, says there should not be any commitment to negotiate the four points.

The latest draft of the declaration, to be signed by the more than 140 trade ministers gathered in Doha, “is highly imbalanced and if adopted would seriously jeopardise the development interests of developing countries,” says the TWN.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s foreign relations minister, Celso Lafer, said he believes the conference will approve the launch of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations to follow in the footsteps of the Uruguay Round (1986-1994).

The proposed text for the final declaration was presented at the opening of the Tuesday morning session by the ministerial conference chairman, Yousef Hussein Kamal, Qatar’s finance minister.

The modifications introduced in the previous version, which had been drawn up in Geneva, home to the WTO, in general bow to the demands of industrialised countries, say critics.

The text referring to agriculture, for example, brackets the mention of “phasing out” farm export subsidies, leaving the door open for the reference to be altered later.

María Lucía Ramírez, Colombia’s trade minister, expressed satisfaction with “the progress made on various issues” in the latest version of the draft.

The only item Ramírez questioned was the bracketing of the text related to export subsidies, she said.

The Colombian minister reckons that the EU had pressed for the brackets because it intends to use the debate surrounding the matter as a negotiating card to get what it wants in environmental rules related to international trade.

The agriculture question has never been so close to being included in the WTO norms, said Ramírez, lamenting what she sees as a lost opportunity.

The multilateral trade system the WTO inherited after its founding in 1995 was entrusted with regulating trade in industrial goods, not in agricultural products, which play a much greater role in the economies of the developing South.

Lafer said that the farm trade issue is key for Brazil, and that the previous text, prior to the introduction of the brackets, had been acceptably worded.

In contrast, Gregor Kreuzhuber, an EU spokesman, celebrated the inclusion of the European bloc’s objections to the text in the form of brackets.

The EU faces internal political difficulties in attempts to dismantle the governmental system of protections for the agricultural sector, which includes export subsidies.

Anthony Gooch, also speaking on behalf of the EU, was pleased with the changes made in the latest revised text of the ministerial declaration, and especially applauded the accord reached on pharmaceutical patents and access to medications.

The matter had led to deep divisions, pitting developing countries, led by the African bloc, against the United States and Switzerland, which defend the pharmaceutical transnational corporations.

On another front, the ACP Group (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific – former European colonies) threatened to stand in the way of any decision by the ministerial conference if its demands were not met on the approval of a trade exception for their countries.

The question is closely tied to Europe’s banana imports. Some Latin American countries, including Honduras, Ecuador and Panama, have requested a WTO study of the effects of the EU-ACP agreement on trade in the fruit.

The EU is committed to granting preferential treatment to its former colonies in the three regions in compliance with the Cotonou Agreement, which replaced the Lomé Convention.