By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 9 2006 (IPS)

Immediate resumption of the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks, on the basis of the original pro-development aim, with agriculture at the top of the agenda, were the demands of developing countries meeting Saturday on an initiative by the Group of 20 (G20).

“The international order is at stake: unless we are able to preserve the multilateral trade system” it will be difficult to maintain order in the face of terrorism, drug trafficking and other global problems, warned Celso Amorim, the Brazilian foreign minister and host of the meeting.

The novelty at the Doha Round of talks launched by the World Trade Organisation in 2001 in the Qatari capital is that “developing countries are at the forefront of this awareness,” and are gaining a hearing among rich countries, said Amorim.

This is reflected in the dialogue that will take place Sunday with key authorities from the United States, Japan and the European Union (EU), the minister said at a press conference to publicise the communiqué of the “High-Level Meeting of the G20 with coordinators of groups of developing countries.”

All 23 members of the G20 were at the meeting (including two new members, Ecuador and Peru), as well as the coordinators of the Group of 33 (G33), the ACP, the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the African Group, the Small and Vulnerable Economies, the Cotton-4 group and NAMA-11.

This plethora of groups of developing countries arose in response to distinctive characteristics or specific interests. The ACP is the group of former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific that enjoy preferential trade agreements under the Lomé Convention, while Cotton-4 is a group of four African countries whose economies depend on cotton.

Such diversity, however, does not prevent unity on identifying common issues and negotiating more just and balanced international trading rules, several G20 ministers and coordinators of the other groups said.

The final communiqué sums up in 11 points the common positions and non-negotiable demands of this mosaic of country groupings of the South. The Doha Round is for development, beyond trade issues; agriculture is central to its agenda; and the only acceptable result is one that fulfils the Doha commitments, signed at the 2001 WTO ministerial conference, the document states.

The groups represented at the meeting declared that any attempt to renegotiate or revise those commitments, and those agreed in later meetings, was “unacceptable.” Developed countries must “significantly improve their proposals,” as their present positions are preventing a satisfactory conclusion to the Doha Round, it added.

The communiqué reaffirmed principles that have already been approved, such as Special and Differential Treatment for developing countries, including the vital role of special products and the special safeguard mechanism which the G33 defends as indispensable to food security, rural development and the continued subsistence of poor populations.

For the least developed countries, access to markets without tariffs and quotas is seen as an urgent need, as well as simplifying rules of origin. These measures would allow the poorest countries to export their products, one of the conditions necessary for their development.

The G20 was formed in 2003, when its members rejected the terms proposed by the United States and the European Union at the failed WTO ministerial conference at Cancún, Mexico. Since then it has played a central role in the negotiations, “especially at times of crisis,” the Brazilian foreign minister remarked.

Agricultural trade without distorting subsidies or barriers is its chief rallying cause, but it has excelled particularly at articulating proposals which rescued the Doha Round from the paralysis arising from the Cancún meeting.

The G20 – which includes emerging powers like Brazil, India, China and South Africa – is “a middle way between several proposals,” combining its own issues with the demands of the various groups of developing countries, Amorim explained, stressing the importance of this meeting in Rio de Janeiro in conjunction with the coordinators of other coalitions.

“We hold many common positions,” such as considering agriculture to be a key factor for development, said the coordinator of the LDCs, Bangladeshi minister of Trade Hafiz Uddin Ahmad.

The G20 “supported unreservedly” the Cotton-4, said its representative, Moudjaidou Soumanou, minister of Industry and Trade from Benin. He emphasised that in West African countries, millions of people depend on cotton as their only export product. U.S. subsidies to its cotton farmers, already condemned by the WTO, do these countries terrible harm.

The G20 is itself “diverse,” including countries with different interests which it must harmonise, and that is why it has become so important in the WTO, said Indian minister of Industry and Trade Kamal Nath.

Eleven members of the G20, including India, also belong to the G33, which has taken up positions in defence of small farmers, or family agriculture as it is now defined in Brazil. The G33 has the support of small farmer (campesino) movements and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in trade issues.

We will not negotiate the issue of subsistence, the Indian minister said, affirming his country’s commitment to the Doha “Development Agenda” and to defending special safeguards for some small-scale agricultural products for domestic consumption.

Protecting subsistence farmers is vital, even for Brazil, but in Asian countries such as India, China and Indonesia it is a matter of life and death for hundreds of millions of families who “simply cannot compete” with the subsidised, large-scale production in Europe or the United States, Amy Parry of the international NGO Oxfam told IPS.

The aim of the Doha Round is to promote development, so it is up to the rich countries “to offer more, without demanding so many concessions from poor countries, and without pressuring them,” she said. The United States and the EU are responsible for the collapse of the talks, and they are taking it in turns to block them with unfair demands, she said.

The Brazilian Network for Peoples’ Integration (REBRIP), made up of 39 social movements and NGOs, including union confederations and small farmer movements, published a manifesto supporting the G20’s position on special differential treatment and the banning of “dumping” in agricultural trade, but calling for it to draw nearer to other developing world movements.

“We are concerned about” Brazil’s position, under pressure from big agribusiness exporters, because the country might “concede a great deal on services and industrial products” in exchange for “crumbs” on agriculture, Celso Marcatto, coordinator of Food Security for Action Aid, an international NGO whose Brazilian branch is part of REBRIP, commented to IPS.

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