"Openings" and their limits. The European Union will be leaving for Doha with clear ideas. Pascal Lamy used his dialectical skills not only to convince the greatest possible number of countries that the new world trade round is useful to them all, but also to clarify and explain the challenges to public opinion. With the Council's agreement, he was able to give ground on several parts of the initial European opinion, particularly in order to take greater account of the needs of developing countries, while clearly indicating the limits of this flexibility, the frontiers beyond which the EU will not go. Our daily newsletter regularly reports on the positions of Pascal Lamy and his fellow negotiator Franz Fischler, the smiling agriculture prophet who is true to his multifunctional role, serving both the population and the planet. Without claiming to summarise either Commissioner's full position, I would like to emphasise a few essential "fixed points":
1. Objectives. The trade round has to be launched at Doha, the topics to be negotiated need to be listed and a programme and timetable have to be drawn up, without trying to launch the negotiations themselves.
2. Environment. The EU will not accept a trade round excluding a clarification of the rules governing how environmental protection meshes with free trade. An appropriate balance has to be struck between liberalisation and regulation.
3. Agriculture. The EU agrees to get involved in negotiations aiming towards greater discipline regarding access to EU markets and production and export subsidies, but will not accept these objectives being set in advance (see point 1). It is clear that simple free trade rules do not apply to agriculture. There are 7 million farmers in the EU, 5 million of whom would not be competitive under global trade rules and it would be unthinkable for Europe to agree to them disappearing. The EU will categorically refuse to make commitments that the United States does not agree to.
4. Social standards. The aim is to provide a permanent "working relation" between the WTO and the ILO for future negotiations over social aspects of free trade and nothing else.
5. Investment and competition. These areas have to be on the negotiating table but the EU is prepared to accept "opt out" solutions or rules and principles which only apply to countries that want to apply them.
6. Access to medicine. The EU will help achieve compromise between countries like the US that refuse systematic derogations to intellectual property rights and those like Brazil and most developing countries that want a general derogation for treatments for AIDS and other epidemics. A compromise is essential since without remuneration the multinationals will not carry out the necessary research (and will therefore not develop an AIDS vaccine) but it medicines have to reach those who need them.
7. The US procedure. Not an immediate demand, but when the negotiations get going, the US will have to have a fast track procedure and delegate powers from Congress to the President so that he can conclude negotiations under certain conditions. No negotiator will make concessions if there is the danger that the US Congress will reject the compromise. If George Bush cannot get a fast track procedure, negotiations will not be taken seriously.
The moment of truth for protestors. For the anti-globalisation and anti-WTO protestors who created such a stink at previous conferences, this will be the moment of truth. Their attitude to the Doha meeting will be a sign of their good faith in the sense that it will determine whether they really are concerned about the interests of poor countries and poor people and protecting the environment or whether their behaviour is determined by personal ambition and biased political objectives. It is becoming clearer to us that Europe supports the general outlook of well-meaning protestors and their justified demands, since it has introduced special schemes for less developed countries along with environmental and social concerns into its negotiating position, together with control over the multinationals (by the appropriate competition rules), easier access to markets and the right to a reasonable amount of food. If these demands are satisfied, the new trade round can introduce a series of rules into world trade that will limit the excesses of globalisation and incorporate developing countries into the mainstream of global trade.
(F.R.)