Bali, 05/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - If it is to prevent a repetition of the 2008 failure, the ministerial conference has 24 hours in which to find a magic formula to meet India's demands on food security.
At the time of going to press on 5 December, during the third day of the WTO ministerial conference in Bali, member countries were working flat out to rally India to a partial agreement on the Doha Round, including a trade facilitation agreement, a development package and certain agricultural elements. Earlier in the day, India had held that it would not give up its demands regarding public stock holdings of agricultural produce for the purposes of food security.
On Thursday, India's Trade Minister Anand Sharma was intractable, and continued to reject the compromise on the table relating to the “peace clause” (or due restraint provision) and the details for its implementation. “The right for food security is non-negotiable. It is a right recognised by the United Nations. We will never compromise”, he told the press. As far as India is concerned, the rules of the 1994 WTO agreement on agriculture, which puts limits on agricultural subsidies including those intended for food programmes, are “of another time”, the “legacy of an imbalance to the detriment of the poor countries”. “India speaks for the vast majority of people in the developing countries and the poor countries. India is not alone”, he went on to stress, sweeping away the idea that India alone could be responsible for failure in Bali.
The Indian government which, on the eve of general elections in 2014, wants to implement a programme aimed at offering an artificially low price for basic foodstuffs for 800 million of the most deprived people in the country, is at the origin of a G33 proposal connected to the “Bali package”, aimed at allowing the developing countries to constitute public stocks of staple foodstuffs for food security purposes, despite limits imposed by the WTO on domestic agricultural subsidies. Such a request also arouses fears at the WTO regarding the possibility that the food stocks might then be used for export purposes and flood the global market with cheap products.
During preparatory talks in Geneva on the “Bali package”, the member nations agreed on a compromise solution proposed by the United States (which was first of all firmly opposed to India's request) on the basis of a “peace clause” lasting four years, which would allow the countries forming stockpiles not to be threatened by WTO action, pending work on a sustainable solution. India, however, which prefers exemption to be in force until a permanent solution is found for subsidies on the whole of the agricultural section of the Doha Round (which could still take years before it is concluded), wants a clause of indefinite duration.
Throughout Thursday, diplomatic efforts continued in search of a cross-cutting balance on the “Bali package”, between its trade facilitation component and its agricultural component, in order to keep India on board and to settle the partial agreement awaited by all. “This is not mission impossible”, said Gita Wirjawan, the Indonesian trade minister, speaking optimistically in the middle of the day. Indonesia, which holds the presidency of the conference, as well as that of the G33, felt it was time for compromise. “We understand Indian concerns. Indonesia also needs a food security policy, but we are more open-minded as to the mechanism” (Ed: the “peace clause”), Gita assured on Wednesday. For many observers and diplomats, however, Indian flexibility will depend on further concession by the United States, which has already yielded considerably with the “peace clause”.
On Thursday evening, the trade facilitation agreement, expected by all - developed countries, emerging countries (South Africa, Brazil and China etc), developing countries and least developed countries - remained hostage. During the morning, Sharma assured that India was validating eight of the ten texts making up the “Bali package” (one on trade facilitation, four on agriculture - including that on stock holdings for food security purposes, plus one on export competition contingents, one on tariff rate quotas administration - and five on the development package). First of all, seeking consensus on the problem of food security, he had intimated that the conference could, at the very worse, come to a compromise on the eight texts validated by India, and then pursue discussions in Geneva on the other two, thus avoiding the collapse of the WTO.
Engaged in a race against time, however, WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo and the member state delegations stayed the course, on Thursday evening, in order to find that magic formula allowing a bridge to be established between India and the main agricultural exporting countries, and to remove the 60 or so brackets around the most difficult provisions still to be negotiated for all ten texts of the agreement. There was still hope, as once the agricultural lock was broken, the blocks of brackets could then be removed, in order to seal the first multilateral agreement - as small as it might be - ever concluded since the birth of the WTO in 1995. (EH/transl.jl)