By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Aug 26 2003 (IPS)

The general lines are drawn for the negotiations to take place among the WTO’s 146 member states next month in Cancun, Mexico. But pending is the difficult task to unite the behind putting together an agreement, say sources close to the trade talks.

An agreement would be finalised with the resolution of issues that have stood out as the critical questions since the beginning of the Doha Round of negotiations in early 2002: agricultural trade, industrial tariffs and the agenda items from the 1996 World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in Singapore.

At the Singapore meet, the trade ministers incorporated into the multilateral agenda the issues of investment, competition, transparency in government procurement, and streamlining customs regulations.

And at the last WTO ministerial conference, held in the Qatar capital in November 2001, it was decided that the member states must resolve in Cancun this year whether they would continue mulling those issues or table them for formal negotiations.

Yet another key issue persistent throughout the Cancun process is the initiative to give poor countries access to low-cost essential medicines – for public health emergencies associated with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, among other diseases.

But it is being debated separately, and is expected to be resolved before the ministerial meet, Sep. 10-14 in the Mexican beach city.

The common thread throughout the debate will by the draft text of the Cancun Declaration, which Carlos Pérez del Castillo, chairman of the WTO General Council, presented to negotiation chiefs on Sunday.

But nobody knows how the negotiators will manage – in the short time remaining – to sort through the many and profound differences triggered by the blueprint declaration.

Pérez del Castillo, who is also Uruguay’s chief negotiator at the WTO, admitted that in this week’s General Council sessions all of the speakers ”have been very critical” of at least part of the text.

And their objections ranged across the board. The council chairman reasoned that if the document awakened opposition from everyone, and from different perspectives, it could be said that the draft declaration’s orientation was not totally unsound.

One of the major powers in international trade, the European Union, expressed concern about what it considers the ”imbalance” of the text.

The text puts the onus of the proposed efforts related to agricultural trade on a handful of countries, and without these being even remotely comparable to the level of ambition regarding non-agricultural market access, said Peter Carl, the EU’s director general for trade.

Likewise, but speaking from the perspective of the developing countries, Brazil’s chief trade negotiator Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa commented that Pérez del Castillo’s text is ”fundamentally flawed”.

As far as agricultural trade, the proposed declaration ”falls short on all three pillars”: domestic support to farmers, export subsidies and market access, said Seixas Correa.

He defended the project promoted by Brazil and 19 other developing countries in the WTO, including India, China, South Africa, and nearly all Latin American nations.

Pérez del Castillo admitted that in drawing up his plan he had used as a framework the trade proposal that the EU and United States put forth two weeks ago for reducing tariffs – an initiative the developing countries said does not go nearly far enough.

But he rejected criticisms that his plan was inclined towards the interests of the industrialised countries, asserting that he made an effort to maintain the level of ambition and take into account the interests of the developing world.

Celine Charveriat, spokeswoman in Geneva for the non-governmental humanitarian group Oxfam International, disagreed with Pérez del Castillo’s arguments.

”This is a travesty of the Development Round,” she said, referring to the Doha agenda for multilateral trade talks, which was intended to focus on areas that would benefit poor countries and spur their economic development.

Charveriat said that the draft declaration allows the two big farm subsidy superpowers ”to keep much of their huge subsidy arsenal in place and continue export dumping (selling at prices below production costs).”

India’s trade ambassador K.M. Chandrasekhar had the same take on the situation. He noted that Pérez del Castillo’s proposed declaration is ”EU and U.S. tailored”, and would allow them to continue their trade-distorting policies.

Debate amongst the delegations will continue this week at the WTO General Council in Geneva.

In diplomatic circles it is believed that Pérez del Castillo, WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi, and other top officials at the institution are of the mind to send the disputed text to Cancun for the ministers to debate it there.

The three principal themes of the draft text have divided the WTO members. The developing countries want broader liberalisation in farm trade, are cautious with respect to industrial tariffs, and want to put off negotiations on the so-called Singapore issues.

But the United States, EU and many other industrialised nations aim to maintain at least some protectionist mechanisms for their agricultural sectors while seeking deeper liberalisation in the other areas.

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