Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) had still not finalised the last details of the texts on the table as they ended their meeting in Geneva on Thursday 16 June. Ministers and heads of delegation had spent the previous night at WTO headquarters negotiating horizontally between the different texts and removing some of the blockages. At the time of going to press, no agreement had been officially announced.
However, a consensus was reached to extend the moratorium on e-commerce, according to two sources close to the negotiations. The duration of this extension is still unclear. This could be until the next ministerial conference, which is supposed to be held in 2024, but which might also be held as early as next year.
Fisheries
Members also agreed on fisheries subsidies, according to several sources. India reportedly obtained additional flexibilities to the text submitted to ministers on Sunday. The idea is to give developing countries a longer-than-expected exemption period to remove subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, according to several sources.
Pandemic response
An agreement on the intellectual property rights of the Covid-19 vaccines appeared to be in place, or close to it, at the time of writing. However, the scope of the flexibilities and the countries that will be able to benefit from them will have to be clarified with the publication of the text of the agreement.
As night fell on Lake Geneva on Thursday evening, the Indian Minister of Commerce Shri Piyush Goyal, said, in front of some journalists which included EUROPE, that he regretted that “two or three words still prevent an agreement”.
China and the US spent many hours on the issue of which countries would benefit from the agreement. According to two different sources, this was done early in the night.
Food security
The topic of food security could also be part of the package announced by the WTO Director General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Here too, details are still lacking as to who got what in the negotiations. At stake was the issue of public food stocks. According to one source, the issue has been resolved, paving the way for a consensus on the two food security texts. One of these is a decision to exempt the World Food Programme (WFP) from export restrictions. The other is a declaration in which members commit to limiting export restrictions.
At the time of writing, the time of the closing ceremony was still unknown and may not take place until the early hours of Friday 17 June. This session will clarify which agreements were finally reached and what their content is. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)