Development & Aid, Europe, Headlines

TRADE-EU: New Helpdesk ‘Not Much Help’

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Feb 4 2004 (IPS) - EU moves to give developing countries better access to its markets must be accompanied by a wider strategy to restart World Trade Organisation negotiations, groups supporting development say.

The demand follows the launch of an online helpdesk to give developing countries more information on access to European Union (EU) markets.

"We want to ensure that exporters in developing countries get the maximum information and assistance in tackling the EU market," Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said at the launch of the helpdesk Monday. "Many developing countries now have difficulty getting information about importing to the bloc so we are tackling the problem in the right way."

Lamy said the helpdesk is a "clear example of our commitment to providing technical assistance to developing countries and to make sure that theoretical market access translates into more trade."

The helpdesk provides information on EU import tariffs and preferences, trade rules and customs documentation. An online exchange forum is available for importers within EU and for exporters from developing countries.

The information offered will be enlarged through the year to include product specific requirements. New information will including marking and labelling requirements and internal tax requirements in individual member states.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, adopted a plan in September 2002 to boost trade from developing countries. The document sets out the relationship between development, trade and the integration of developing countries into the world economy. It recommended practical steps for the EU to support exports from the developing world. The helpdesk is in line with that policy.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have welcomed the move to increase the information flow between the EU and developing countries, but they say the helpdesk must be accompanied by concrete steps to get the Doha Development Round back on track.

The trade round launched in 2001 was scheduled to conclude this year but is months behind schedule.

Talks in the Mexican beach resort Cancun broke down last September mainly over the estimated 350 billion dollars a year rich countries spend on farm subsidies, and on the new issues EU wants to include in World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations. These include trade and competition policy, trade facilitation, and transparency in government procurement. Efforts to restart the trade negotiations in December also failed.

"Making market information, including market access information more accessible to developing countries is one of the prerequisites for producers in the South to successfully establish and develop export markets with EU member states, Stefan Chrobok from the European Fair Trade Association, a network of 11 organisations told IPS. "It is a key demand regularly made by fair trade organisations in Europe."

But the initiative "must be part of a wider strategy that aims at providing better market access to developing country producers and capacity-building of disadvantaged producers," he said.

Hegel Goutier, spokesperson for the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) secretariat in Brussels said the helpdesk will "always be useful" but that is "not a big deal."

Goutier also rejected a call by Lamy that developing nations tell the EU which trade subsidies it should drop under WTO negotiations.

"Once we have got a list…to cut subsidies to zero, we are ready to negotiate on all of that list," Lamy said. "It is an open offer, so sugar and tobacco can be on that list, but we do need to have that list."

The list will not solve the trade problem, Goutier says. The EU "needs to make sensible reduction of subsidies."

More than 40 percent of EU imports come from developing countries.