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TRADE: EU Pushed to Do Better

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Dec 5 2005 (IPS) - With just days to go before the crucial trade talks in Hong Kong, non-governmental organisations are pushing the EU to do more on trade justice, gender equality, development and the environment.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministers meeting will be “at the very best a damp squib” which will do nothing for the billions living in poverty, four civil society groups who will be a part of the European Union (EU) delegation said in a statement Monday.

At its worst, the summit outcome could destroy the livelihoods of millions, they said.

The four Belgium-based groups are the International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (CIDSE), an alliance of 15 Catholic development organisations from Europe and North America, the environment group Greenpeace, Solidar, an international alliance involved in social service provision, humanitarian aid and life-long learning, and Women in Development Europe (WIDE).

Trade ministers from 148 member countries of the WTO will meet in Hong Kong Dec. 13-18 to attempt agreement on the stalled Doha Development Round of trade talks, named after Doha in Qatar where the talks were launched four years back.

The negotiations are aimed at freeing up trade in a range of sectors from agriculture to manufactured goods and services.

Developed nations want developing countries to open up their markets to industrial goods and services in exchange for any concessions on agriculture.

Agricultural tariffs and subsidies are the main obstacles to a new international trade agreement. EU tariffs on agricultural produce from developing countries raise the price of those products. At the same time, subsidies handed out to European farmers artificially lower the price of European agriculture produce. This makes most agricultural goods from developing countries uncompetitive.

Civil society groups are warning that the EU is not ready to make the necessary concessions to ensure that poor countries get a fair deal.

The EU, the United States and other rich governments seem ready to make deals in Hong Kong without calculating the effect such deals can have on jobs and communities, the groups said in their joint statement.

Solidar says the EU and the other rich countries’ approach to these negotiations are not based on facts.

“More trade may create jobs, but no one knows how many will be lost and by whom, nor how many livelihoods will be ruined,” Giampiero Alhadeff, secretary-general of Solidar told media representatives Monday. “We have seen with the case of textiles where this kind of blind faith leads us.”

Guillaume Legaut, policy officer at CIDSE said the EU needs to change its approach to the negotiations if it wants to achieve a development deal.

“The issues at stake should not be offensive and defensive trade interests, or liberalisation versus market protection,” said Legaut. “The challenge for people in poverty is about economic vulnerability versus sustainability. It is about food security, decent work for women and men and secured livelihood of communities.”

Meagen Baldwin, executive director of WIDE, said she will remind the European Commission (the EU executive) that although some women have gained from global trade, many others have lost their livelihoods or been forced to work in appalling conditions of abuse and violence.

Greenpeace will highlight the global environmental impacts of the negotiations.

“Sustainable development must be the overriding objective of the global trade system. The current negotiations must stop ignoring the environment and using development only for rhetorical purposes. As a key player in the WTO, the EU has the responsibility to take the lead in ensuring a sustainable outcome for all,” Juergen Knirsch from Greenpeace said.

But while the NGOs will work in Hong Kong to press the EU on such development issues, they are concerned about the limitations of their influence on the EU delegation and on the outcome of the negotiations.

“We are very much on the outside circle of the EU delegation, and we want the Commission to take our part more seriously so that we can have a better dialogue,” Baldwin said.