Brussels, 27/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - The ministerial conference will have to reach agreement on ten texts if it is to avoid failure. An agreement on trade facilitation has the greatest chance of being finalised.
As predicted (see EUROPE 10970), the trade ministers from the 159 WTO member countries will meet in Bali on 3-6 December without their ambassadors having managed to reach agreement on a draft mini-agreement on the Doha round - after three months of intensive discussions in Geneva. This was confirmed by head of the WTO, Roberto Azevedo, before the WTO General Council on 26 November.
“We are not going to Bali with a set of finalised documents that could allow the ministers to announce to the world a set of multilaterally agreed outcomes - the first since the WTO was created. If we are to get this deal over the line it will need political engagement - and political will. Ministers will need to decide what future they want to see - both for the issues on the table here today - and for the WTO”, said Azevedo. Since taking up office on 1 September, Azevedo has been trying to relaunch the Doha Round that started in 2001 and that has been in stalemate since the failure in 2008 (see EUROPE 9714). However, as always, the talks have come up against the stumbling block which is agriculture.
The core point of a partial agreement, which will be complemented by a work programme to implement by 2014, is an agreement on trade facilitation - which largely depends on the easing of customs procedures to facilitate trade flows. It is an agreement to which the member countries have linked an agreement on issues of special and differentiated treatment for developing countries and less developed countries (LDCs), and certain agricultural aspects - public stockholding for food security purposes, export competition, and tariff rate quota administration.
In Bali, the ministers will work on ten texts - as well as the agreement on trade facilitation, there are four documents on agriculture (one on each of the three aspects mentioned above, and one on agriculture general services), and five documents on development (one on the monitoring mechanism on special and differentiated treatment, one on duty-free and quota-free market access for LDCs, one on rules of origin for LDCs, one on cotton, and one on the operationalisation of the waiver concerning preferential treatment to services and service suppliers of LDCs). These texts come with 65 square brackets around the most difficult arrangements still to be negotiated.
The draft agreement on trade facilitation is still coming up against concerns from certain member countries, like Turkey, on the impact of new rules on the transit of goods, or certain Central American countries that resist calls for the removal of customs intermediaries.
As regards the agricultural chapter, the request from the G33 developing countries, led by India - aiming to obtain special treatment allowing them to constitute stocks of products of primary importance in order to manage a possible food crisis in their country without being threatened with a complaint to the WTO by the other third countries (a peace clause would be limited to four years) - is meeting with opposition from Pakistan.
The ministers will also have to come to an agreement on a request put by the G20 emerging countries, led by Brazil, regarding the management of tariff quotas, and the issue of pointless charges implemented by an importing country that prevents an exporting country from fully benefitting from the quota.
With regard to their second request, concerning export competition, the G20 countries should obtain a non-binding political statement regarding the partial application of the agreement concluded in Hong Kong in 2005 on the simultaneous removal of all forms of export subsidy.
On Tuesday, Azevedo urged the member countries to show political resolve in order to come to a successful end. “The worst of all is that we would fail - we would lose all of this - for no justifiable reason. Nothing that is on the table requires any member to go beyond what is do-able. One may not get all that he seeks, but no unmanageable contribution is required from anyone”, said Azevedo, who stated that “this is not about a North-South divide” on the junction points, but that “this is about specific, localised difficulties - all of them perfectly workable”.
With less than a week to go before the Bali conference begins, several diplomatic sources were pointing the finger of blame at India for the recent blockages. As one of the big actors in the Doha round, India is the only country to be facing an important electoral deadline - with general elections in 2014.
For its part, the EU remains optimistic. On Tuesday, its chief negotiator, European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht, said he was confident about the possibility of concluding a mini-agreement, which he believes is “perfectly within reach” of the WTO member countries. “This package can be finalised by the ministerial conference in Bali next week if all WTO members show the political will to reach a deal. As we are so close to the shared objective, we should not give up”, he stated.
According to the OECD, an agreement on trade facilitation could reduce the costs of trade by 10% (in other words, US$400 billion). According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a partial agreement would add US$ 960 billion to world GDP and would create 21 million jobs, including 18 million in developing countries. (EH/transl.fl)