Brussels, 24/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - A week which will be vital for the outcome of the Doha Round opens this Wednesday in Davos, where the trade ministers taking part in the world economic Forum (26-30 January) will look at ways of resuming multilateral negotiations, with a view to success by the end of the year. After 18 months of political stalemate, a wind of optimism is accompanying the process, notably because the United States is increasingly determined to conclude a laborious round of talks launched in 2001.
Lamy confident. Since he took over at the head of the multilateral organisation which governs world trade on 1 September 2005, Pascal Lamy has never faltered in his belief in a happy outcome of the Doha development agenda, even in its darkest hours, such as following the breakdown of the ministerial meeting in Geneva in July 2008, where the 153 member countries of the WTO flirted with a definitive agreement which ended up escaping them, partly due to a dispute between the United States and India over the issue of the special safeguard mechanism for agriculture for the developing countries. Eighteen months down the line, Lamy is still as optimistic as ever. “The chances of concluding this year are considerably better than the same time last year. We are in a period of 'go', after two years of a period of 'stop', or at least of very slow progress”, said the director general of the WTO on Saturday 22 January, on the sidelines of the meeting of the agriculture ministers in the framework of the agricultural conference of Berlin. “The political context is more committed, more favourable (…). It is not unfeasible”, added Lamy, who will be taking part this week in the work of the Davos Forum. “The agricultural plank of the negotiations is 90% concluded. It is mainly in other areas that we are stuck. As everything is linked, we need to resolve the problems in these other areas”, the WTO boss explained. As well as the tricky agricultural plank, the Doha Round is based on two major chapters: Access to the market for non-agricultural goods and industrial products (NAMA) and the sectoral negotiations, and the liberalisation of trade in services.
Davos to breathe new life into the process. The Davos Forum, which opens this week, will provide a luxury setting for informal talks on Doha. By request of the European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, a meeting scheduled for 28 January on the sidelines of the Forum will put the political goodwill of the negotiators-in-chief of the key actors in the round, Australia, Brazil, China, the United States, India, Japan and the EU, to the test. “At this point, it is important to state that whilst 2011 gives us a genuine opportunity to conclude the round, this meeting is merely a first stage, without prejudice to the format of any future meeting. The EU hopes that this meeting will help to breathe new life into the Doha negotiations for the months to come”, the spokesperson to De Gucht, John Clancy, explained last week. A further meeting on the subject of Doha, which has been extended to include other trade ministers, will also be held in the framework of the Forum.
The United States ready to conclude … Recent positive signs from Washington are the reason for this talk of new life. On the sidelines of the transatlantic economic Council in mid-December, Commissioner De Gucht said that he was confident in the goodwill of the administration of American President Barack Obama, who had previously appeared somewhat reticent in matters of free trade, definitively to conclude the round. “The United States really wants to conclude Doha (…). It makes it very hard to commit when you are not sure how much your partners wish to conclude matters”, the trade commissioner stressed. In order to generate growth and jobs in the United States, President Obama has pledged to double American exports by 2015. This objective will oblige his country to conclude free-trade agreements, which the Republican majority is less likely to oppose than in the recent past.
… but is still calling for concessions from the emerging countries. Although the American political goodwill to conclude Doha exists, a definitive agreement will still be difficult for the Obama administration to sell to Congress, if the United States has no assurance of new trade opportunities on the markets of the emerging countries. In order for the Doha round to be concluded this year, the large emerging economies, Brazil, China and India, will have to “take their responsibility” and present ambitious offers to open up their industrial and services markets, the American ambassador to the WTO and deputy American Trade Representative, Michael Punke, warned in Geneva in mid-January. “If they are inclined to accept this responsibility, we will have a positive outcome; if they are not, we won't”, Punke stressed. He added that in his view, there is no support in Washington for a “little Doha agreement”, as the American head of State wants to put “a good agreement” to Congress, if at all possible. (E.H./transl.fl)