DEVELOPMENT: EU Stand on Doha Round Challenged

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Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, May 9 2003 (IPS) - Civil society groups have demanded stronger protection for developing countries in the current round of international trade negotiations.

Members of several groups asked the EU (European Union) at a meeting Thursday to play a firm role in ensuring that protection for poor and development countries is built into the Doha round of trade negotiations – a series of multilateral trade talks launched in the Qatar capital Doha in November 2001.

EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy faced tough questions at the meeting from NGOs (non-governmental organisations). Oxfam, CIDSE (International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity based in Brussels) and SOLIDAR, an independent international alliance of NGOs hosted the conference. Members were invited from civil society organisations around the world to discuss EU promises to put development issues at the heart of the Doha Round. The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) was designed to lead to further reductions in trade barriers for agriculture, services, and textile imports, as well as ensuring that trade agreements did not damage the environment. The trade round, which is expected to last until 2005, is the most complex trade negotiations ever attempted.

The DDA has come under severe fire from interest groups and from governments from the least developed countries concerned that the negotiations, which include liberalisation of investment and competition policy, do not pay enough attention to the needs of the poorest countries. One of the greatest fears is that Western multinational firms will be given greater right to invest in developing countries without restriction.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is working with the EU to help developing and least developed countries adjust to a multilateral trading system.

"It is important that social and environmental concerns are also integrated into all the work of the WTO," said Giampiero Alhadeff, secretary-general of SOLIDAR who chaired the meeting. "There needs to be increasing involvement of relevant UN (United Nations) agencies in the dispute settlement procedure, and sustainability impact assessments should start at a multilateral level, covering both development and environmental sustainability, and social concerns including core labour standards and the effect of trade on women."

Duncan Green from CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) said the DDA was rapidly turning into a "mirage" and that many of the negotiations in Geneva had reached a state of paralysis by the end of last year.

"This is particularly true in areas of keenest interest to developing countries, such as agriculture, special and differential treatment, and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs)," he said.

TRIPs, an international agreement on patents and copyrights on medicines, will force poor countries to pay more than they can afford for vital drugs, Green says.

He particularly criticised the liberalisation of agriculture, in which developing countries have the biggest stake. The EU announced in December last year that it would cut export subsidies by 45 per cent. But several NGOs say this was a "dishonest offer" as it proposes a reduction on previously defined maximum levels rather than on amounts paid. A new agriculture policy should work in the interests of poverty reduction and food security in developing countries, Green said. It should set out a binding timetable for elimination of all export subsidies, and the EU should assess its likely impact on food security in developing countries, he said.

Jo Leadbeater from Oxfam said the EU has put pressure on developing countries to accept a "dilution and restriction solution" on access to medicines.

Lamy dismissed the suggestion. "Civil society organisations believe that developing countries should not have accepted the TRIPs agreement, but they decided and they chose it," he said. "I did not twist anyone’s arm. The problem now is a lack of trust between everyone involved and we have to increase this trust."

Leadbeater said Oxfam wants to see a change to the agreement. "If there isn’t, the EU will be presenting developing countries with a cruel choice: either accept a bad deal with unacceptable restrictions and burdensome conditions, or be content with no deal at all."

Lamy urged NGOs not to be too critical of the round until it is completed. "I agree that rhetoric needs to be matched with results," he said. "But the jury will be out on this until the end of the round. The proof of the pudding will be at the end of the round."

The WTO is calling ministers from its 145 member states for a conference in September in Cancun in Mexico where they will assess the progress of the trade talks. Lamy told the NGOs that the meeting would be about "moving talks forward".