Brussels / Geneva, 31/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - On 31 March, the 145 members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) were not at the venue they had fixed while in Doha to find an agreement on modalities - targets and ambitions - for the planned reform of farm trade. This serious setback had been predicted (see EUROPE of 29 March, p.13). This was officially confirmed at the end of the day by Stuart Harbinson, who pilots the negotiation, after a formal session of the agriculture committee that would close four intensive but vain days of consultation. It will be taken up again, on condition that the necessary "hard work" is done, not only in Geneva but also in the capitals, he said in substance.
However, what is most worrying is that the deadlock that has essentially paralysed negotiations is the reflection of fundamental dissension between the various camps present, many of them who point the finger of blame at the Union and its division over reform of farm policy. "It would seem that things cannot develop until CAP reform comes through" or that Europeans have a mandate, one delegate from another agricultural power put forward. A diplomat from another camp shares this view but refuses to speak of a generalised wait-and-see policy. Mary Minch, heading the team of European negotiators on the farm dossier, said she did not believe it was right to say that the European Community, or even Japan, is not willing to negotiate.
In this affair, observers note, this new but missed timetable is the fourth missed WTO venue in the Doha process, that is, four out of four (with access to medicines, special and differentiated treatment to be reserved for developing countries and the implementation of their commitments under the Uruguay Round) and even five out of five if one counts the deadline agreed for making offers to open up the services market. While voices are beginning to make themselves heard (unofficially), however, over the past few weeks to predict or suggest putting off the 1 January 2005 deadline, others recall that multilateral trade negotiations have often played extra time. But anyway, diplomatic sources say in Brussels, to admit that it will no doubt be necessary to come to that would be tantamount to easing the pressure, which could really place the process in danger. For Europeans, this is out of the question. Ms Minch said there is absolutely no desire or indication on the European side that they would like to put the brake on - "not at all".
The Cancún agenda also looks as if it will be dangerously overladen like that in Seattle in 1999 or that in Brussels in 1990 (during the Uruguay Round). In Geneva, however, there is still the hope that the WTO ministerial conference will be lightened of the burden of a number of particularly thorny issues, like that of facilitated access by developing countries to essential medicines ('and the protection of intellectual property). But on agriculture, where they are on the defensive and on the offensive, Europeans insist on the concept of package, or, in other words, the quest for consensus and balance on all the very numerous and tricky outstanding issues. EUROPE will come back to this.