Bali, 04/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - The ministerial conference needs to find a solution to India's demands on food security if it is to avoid failure of the agreement on trade facilitation.
On Wednesday 4 December, the second day of talks, the WTO ministerial conference in Bali was at a dead end, at the time of going to press, due to a lack of convergence on the proposal of the G33 developing countries on public stockholding of food to ensure food security. In the corridors of the conference centre, many voices were attributing responsibility for the blockage to India. The WTO ministerial conference is due to give rise to a partial agreement on the Doha Round - including an agreement on trade facilitation, a development package and certain agricultural points.
Hardly had the plenary session opened when India's Minister for Trade Anand Sharma straightaway cast doubt on the success of the meeting by reaffirming New Delhi's intransigence in its resolve to lift the restrictions laid down by the WTO on agricultural subsidies for food programmes. “For India, food security is non-negotiable. The need of public stockholding of food grain to ensure food security must be respected. Dated WTO rules need to be corrected”, Sharma stated.
India is at the origin of the G33's proposal which, hooked into the Bali package, aims to allow developing countries to form public stockpiles of basic foodstuffs for food security purposes, despite the limits laid down by the WTO on domestic agricultural subsidies. However, at the WTO, this request raises fears that the food stocks might then be used to flood the world market with cheap products. During their preparatory negotiations for the Bali package, the member countries agreed on a peace clause for a period of four years, which would enable stockpiling countries not be threatened with appeals to the WTO, while waiting for a decision to be made on a lasting solution. India nevertheless wants a clause of an indeterminate period.
India is not in Bali to make compromises. In difficulty ahead of general elections in spring 2014, the current Indian government wants to implement a programme aiming to offer an artificially low price for basic foodstuffs for 800 million of the country's poorest people. And on Wednesday, Sharma showed his intransigence. “The due restraint mechanism [peace clause] in its current form cannot be accepted. It is considerably diluted and hemmed in by onerous conditionalities. Any such solution must remain in force until we are able to agree on a lasting solution and provide adequate protection from all kinds of challenges”, he said, casting doubt on the already fragile Bali package. He called for “demonstrable horizontal balances” on the package's trade facilitation component and on its agricultural component. With regard to the trade facilitation component, India says it is “constructively engaged”, stating that a few contentious issues still have to be settled. “We consider it premature to support an inconclusive trade facilitation agreement”, Sharma concluded.
European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht admitted his pessimism to the plenary and to the press. During a bilateral meeting with his Indian counterpart on Tuesday evening he had received the same message. “I am optimistic by nature but today I must admit I am in sombre mood”, De Gucht told the press. “The consequences of failure are clear. Let's make no mistake - it's the outcome of the whole WTO which is at stake. I hope that India realises this and that it will engage on a path of compromise”, he said, calling on Sharma to demonstrate the “necessary flexibility”. Nothing is lost yet. “If a solution is found on food security, the other issues that are up in the air - including that on trade facilitation - can be resolved by the end of the conference”, De Gucht said, stating that the EU is ready to make concessions on what initially was the conference's flagship issue. “But it is not possible to envisage a permanent solution in Bali [for the peace clause] on food security”, he warned, thus rejecting the India's main demand.
The US has rejected possible responsibility for failure. “The first multilateral agreement in history is within our reach and at our fingertips”, said US Trade Representative Michael Froman during his plenary session speech. “No country had everything it wanted” in the compromise proposal put together in Geneva, but “we have been flexible, we have made our share of the compromise”, he said. Progress is more than ever awaited on Thursday after a night of bilateral meetings and consultations between WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo and ministers from the member countries most concerned about the Bali package (our translation throughout). (EH/transl.fl)