Brussels, 05/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - One year after the resounding failure of the Seattle ministerial conference, the Union is preparing to reformulate its stance in view of securing the launch of a new round of negotiations on the liberalisation of world trade, European Commissioner Pascal Lamy has announced. An assessment of the effort at convincing and clarifying undertaken since then has led him to conclude that "one has to be prepared to go further in the direction of developing countries as, one thing is clear, these countries are not yet convinced". It is not a question of returning to the "whys of a round" - this remaining the "priority goal - but to be "more cautious, generous and precise (…) so that the Marrakech syndrome affecting some of them may be dissipated", he stipulated.
"With the necessary step back", Commissioner Lamy today attributes the failure in Seattle to "three basic problems", including the fact that developing countries did not see their interests or their fears taken sufficiently into account. The two other problems being the concerns and questions of civil society, including such sensitive subjects as the democratic deficit and the lack of transparency of international trading systems, and the internal processes of the World Trade Organisation that he had at the time already qualified as "Medieval". Since then, the Union has made proposals and acted on these three fronts, but much remains to be done. For Lamy, "what has happened this year should convince us, if convince need be, that we need more rules to render the system more efficient, as well as fairer". One can but, however, observe that "there is not sufficient backing on the part of developing countries for a round" and that, "the time has come to consider a new formulation of our position" to render it more acceptable for these countries, while leaving the substance intact, where lies the 'why' for a new round, which is to secure greater market access and more rules". The idea is to "sort out what is strategic and what is tactical, to clarify the European position", as, "if we remain vague, nobody can make sense of it". The Commission is to initiate consultations "above all to test out our ideas", both inside and outside the Union, before "taking the necessary steps" to secure the launch of a round as soon as possible.
"We all need liberalisation, be it the rich or the poor of the planet, and the longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to move forward", said Mr. Lamy, also convinced that developing countries will be better off in a WTO round "where they have acquired their weight" rather than in bilateral negotiations that seduce some but are "surely not so good for their interests". Going further in their direction also means giving the "go-ahead" to the "Everything but Weapons" initiative (for opening the EU market to the "least advanced countries"), but that is still on the Council's table. "My argument to convince Member States is to say that words are fine but actions speak louder", said Mr. Lamy, adding that he was convinced that there was "nothing very dangerous" in moving along those lines. As for the ability of developing countries to assimilate WTO rules and commitments, the Union must continue to promote technical assistance, dialogue (as it has already done by co-funding the African Ministerial Conference of Libreville) and intra-regional integration. Such a process represents, according to him, "a step towards global integration that will contribute in rendering the system more effective (…), a good formula for the approximate alignment of the positions" of the 139 countries members of the organisation. So, what of the reform recommended after Seattle? "It is clear that we still need to work on the reform", but the time is not yet right "to put concrete ideas on the table. Our priority is the launch of a new round and we would not wish to upset the process of preparing this round", he said.
Finally, Mr. Lamy urged the Union to throw its weight around more forcefully on the international trading stage by adjusting its policy (made to measure on a trade that in 1957 was summarized by trade in goods and services) to the "re-composition" of the global system. According to him, the move to qualified majority voting within the Council is the "price to pay" for a Europe that is enlarging and does not want to provide its partners with the "means to weaken it". And, to respond to the substantive concerns expressed by civil society, he recommends "beginning at home by dealing with the democratic deficit", further involving the European Parliament (co-decision) in trade talks to "make of what is recognised today as a political reality (…) a legal reality".