By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Oct 14 2003 (IPS)

The World Trade Organisation, just a month after the resounding failure of its ministerial conference in the Mexican resort of Cancun, is laying the groundwork to re-launch negotiations, preparing to hold consultations next week on agriculture trade, the thorniest issue on the docket.

The consultation mechanism will begin immediately after the formal sessions of the WTO General Council, slated for next Tuesday, council chairman Carlos Pérez del Castillo told IPS.

An informal meeting of delegation chiefs from the 146 member states held in Geneva this Tuesday gave the go-ahead to the proposal put forth by Pérez del Castillo, who said his plan had been well received.

"I think the feeling is unanimous that the time has come to restart this process, based on the ideas I have suggested," he said.

Pérez del Castillo, a Uruguayan diplomat, announced that consultations would be tabled in various formats, and meetings are to be held with regional blocs and other groups of member nations.

Throughout these actions, the priorities will be transparency and participation, he said.

Among these touchy matters are cotton trade, the reduction of tariffs on industrial goods, and the so-called "Singapore issues" – competition policies, protection for foreign investment, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement – pending since the 2nd WTO Ministerial Conference in 1996.

The cotton debate reached the WTO through a claim by four African countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali – which object to the approximately 3.6 billion dollars in subsidies received by 25,000 cotton growers in the United States.

Washington’s intervention in the sector has driven down international cotton prices and hurts some 12 million farmers in Africa who rely on this crop for their livelihood, the four countries charged.

After the first round of consultations on farm trade, "to test the willingness and the flexibility of the governments in that area," Pérez del Castillo says he will initiate a series of conversation about the other three matters: cotton, industrial tariffs and the Singapore issues.

In the case of agriculture specifically, he said, the consultations are aimed at achieving a basis of understanding of the modalities that will guide negotiations towards liberalising farm trade, an effort begun in January 2000 and set to wrap up by Jan. 1, 2005.

That date is also the deadline for resolving the rest of the pending issues on the WTO negotiating agenda, known as the Doha Round, after the 2001 ministerial conference in the Qatari capital.

Throughout the Doha process, irreconcilable differences have emerged between the trade interests of individual countries or groups of nations, and the divisions only deepened as the ministers gathered in Cancun.

The United States and European Union, a few weeks before the Mexico conference, created an alliance based on the farm trade question.

The two trade powers, known for their heavy agricultural subsidies, offered some concessions, but the developing countries they meant to appease said the proposed measures did not go far enough.

The reaction altered the balance of power within the WTO. A group of developing countries emerged – known variously as the Group of 20, or G20+, or G22, depending on the day – demanding the elimination of the farm trade barriers erected by the countries of the industrialised North.

The new group includes the leaders of the developing world, such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Argentina.

India’s chief negotiator, KM Chandrasekhar, acknowledged that the G20+ membership has changed since it was formed in late August in Geneva.

"Some members will go, some will come in. This is a normal process. But that is not the basic issue," said the diplomat. "The basic issue is whether as a group we are able to work together" and to make sure the matters that concern us are taken into account.

Chandrasekhar confirmed that the group would be holding meetings to discuss the consultations on farm trade that the WTO is to begin next week. "We will certainly be talking to each other. We will try to see what best we can do to stimulate further discussions."

In contrast to the willingness for dialogue expressed by the Indian negotiator, sources from the United States and European Union had previously written off the new group of developing countries, saying the bloc is "intransigent" and even "radical".

In a summary of the discussions in Geneva, trade officials said that a commitment to maintaining the multilateral trade system predominates, as manifest by three African countries – Benin, Botswana and Morocco – and by Bolivia, the four having made presentations in Tuesday’s sessions.

After the Cancun debacle, at the WTO and elsewhere fear has been expressed about the future of the multilateral system, particularly after statements by the U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick that his country would focus on negotiating bilateral and regional trade agreements.

The EU also made it know that it would review its international trade strategy in light of the Cancun meet.

Carlo Trojan, the EU representative to the WTO, said that while Pérez del Castillo follows through in his consultations in Geneva, the European bloc would hold internal talks on the position it will take in the post-Cancun phase.

In a "reflection and consultation exercise", the EU will reassess its position, including on the Singapore issues, and "how it affects our strategic approach," said Trojan.

Excerpt: