Brussels, 01/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - Although there is no doubt about an agreement being reached on trade facilitation, a compromise seems very unlikely on the sub-chapter relating to export subsidies and competition.
As the WTO full ministerial meeting in Bali from 3 to 6 December draws steadily closer, the new man at the helm, Roberto Azevedo of Brazil, has called on member states for “work to intensify even further at all levels, every day and every night”. Addressing the trade talks committee on 25 October, Azevedo said he had had intensive consultations in recent weeks with the delegations, mainly looking at “specific issues, paragraphs and even words” in the mini-package that is to be negotiated in Bali, that have been identified as having to be treated as matters of great urgency.
Since taking up his position on 1 September, Azevedo has many times repeated that a further failure of the Doha Round after that of 2008, which deadlocked talks begun in 2001, is quite simply unthinkable. The Brazilian diplomat wants a minimum agreement on the mini-package at all cost, a partial global agreement geared to three chapters and completed by a work programme to be implemented as of 2014.
The focal point of the partial agreement is a trade facilitation agreement (largely based on the lightening of customs procedures in order to facilitate trade flows) to which a number of member states have linked an agreement on questions relating to special and differentiated treatment for developing countries and to the needs of less developed countries (LDC), and on a number of agricultural elements.
Agreement is within touching distance in the chapter on development regarding the control mechanism that will revise the functioning of the provisions on special and differentiated treatment but there are still aspects to be settled. Progress must also be made concerning the Bali-package for LDC.
Agricultural elements correspond to three requests from various groups of developing countries. First of all, there are the G33 countries that want special treatment in order to ease the restraints on domestic support concerning public stocks and domestic food aid. There is quite broad consensus on the possibility of placing support for programmes aimed at improving food security in the “green box” (subsidies authorised without restriction). Nonetheless, discussions are now stumbling over India's proposal to authorise those countries to exceed the limit of their “orange box” (domestic support measures reputed to have a distorting effect) for food supply security reasons. India wants to be able to buy rice and cereals from low-resource, low-income farmers in order to stockpile them, with the aim of limiting the impact of price surges on the global markets. One solution being discussed is based on the principle that the other WTO member states temporarily refrain from filing a complaint against a developing country implementing this kind of provision, but with conditions.
The second and most sensitive request comes from the emerging countries of the G20 headed by Brazil. It concerns the partial application of the agreement sealed in Hong Kong in 2005 on export competition, i.e. the partial elimination of all forms of export subsidies and of restraints concerning measures with an equivalent effect (export credits, food aid and state trading enterprises). Although a result on this in Bali is effectively wanted by everyone, a compromise seems unlikely. Members may simply reaffirm the objective but commit to dealing with the matter as a priority after Bali.
Finally, the third request, also from the G20, concerns the question of tariff rate quotas (TRQ), which are not fully used due to pointless red tape. The G20 proposal aims to increase transparency of quotas and to find a mechanism for reducing the administrative burden. (EH/transl.jl)