Brussels, 23/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - Parliaments from WTO member states support the conclusion of an agreement by the end of this year. This would conclude the laborious Doha Round negotiations launched in 2001. Pascal Lamy again warned against any weakening of the multilateral system.
Meeting on 21-22 March in Geneva, the seventh-WTO inter-parliamentary conference gave its support to concluding the Doha Round by the end of 2011. A declaration adopted by 200 parliamentary representatives from 67 national legislative bodies and 4 assemblies, including 15 MEPs led by Stavros Lambrinidis (S&D, Greece), underlined: “It is imperative to change gear, fuelling and sustaining the momentum in order to bring the negotiations to a close by the end of the year.” The text explained that liberalisation of trade and sustainable development could not be envisaged separately and called for additional effort to be made to guarantee cohesion of policies between global governance bodies - the WTO, IMF, World Bank, UN and the ILO. The document calls on developed countries to provide market access on a lasting basis for all products originating from least developed countries (LDCs) and urges developing economies to advance enough to contribute to this process.
The director-general of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, warned that the WTO could be weakened if the multilateral negotiations failed. The former commissioner for trade warned that “in these troubled times, the WTO must act as if it were a catalyst for building trust and unity through the conclusion of the Doha Round. It must help to build a more stable world. A crisis at the WTO is not what responsible members of the international community expect. Let's not weaken one of the best examples of functioning international cooperation”. Lamy pointed out that the trade talks were now entering a critical phase and a new compromise text on agriculture and industrial products were expected for Easter. He finished by saying that “we need to conclude Doha now, for the benefits that it will bring to the world economy but also for the vote of confidence that it will bring to the multilateral system and for confirming the guarantees it brings to this system against protectionism during the crisis.” (E.H./transl.fl)