Brussels, 25/08/2003 (Agence Europe) - After about ten days of intensive talks in Geneva, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) presented, on Sunday evening, a new draft general compromise intended to bring negotiations on the Doha Agenda out of impasse just two weeks from the key test of Cancun, where the institution's next ministerial conference is to be held. The document, which mainly seeks to defuse the North/South row over agriculture by using the various positions taken last week (see EUROPE of 22 August, p.5, and 23 August, p.6), was submitted to the Fifteen for their first reactions and then to the 146, on Monday afternoon. The official declarations were not expected until the evening - "each word is important and must be carefully weighed", was the excuse given in Brussels. However, a few hours earlier, pessimistic comments were already being heard on the Japanese and African sides.
The compromise proposed by Uruguayan Ambassador Carlos Perez de Castillo, President of the WTO General Council (which is to meet until the end of the week after the heads of delegations), with the support of the Secretary General for the organisation, Supachaï Panichpakdi, is presented as a six-page ministerial text comprising a series of chapters devoted to the 26 subjects on the agenda (including the accessions by Cambodia and Nepal to which the 146 are expected to give their approval in Cancun) with, for the trickiest among them, a specific text in annex. One of these 7 annexes naturally covers agriculture. On this particularly thorny ground for the trade round, the leader for the negotiations moves forward with measured steps.
His project broadly takes inspiration from the guidelines put forward by the Euro-American tandem on 13 August this year, while bearing in mind positions advanced by other exporting powers and developing countries. He thus clearly dismisses the idea, that many of them liked, of seeing any form of ban or ceiling on financial support to agriculture. What Mr Perez de Castillo recommends is to endorse reduction of internal aid and subsidies (including credits) for exports, for which he nonetheless takes on board the aim of gradual and parallel phasing out, but without setting a deadline. The question of phasing out all forms of export subsidies has still to be negotiated, he said. The same is true for the targets set for reductions, which are given at this stage in brackets, as well as for other particularly sensitive points, mainly the peace clause, non-trade concerns, commitments per product regarding internal support, geographical names, periods of implementation, the question of tariff quotas, export taxes, the list of products of special interest for development countries, the fate of export restrictions and flexibility to be granted to certain groups of countries. Some specific provisions are nonetheless set out for the less developed countries, going as far as exemption of reduction commitments.
The six texts in annex concern a framework for the establishment of arrangements for access to the market of non-farm products (industrial products), special and differentiated treatment promised to developing countries for which modalities have still to be specified (including on agriculture, rules of origin, import licence procedure, agreements on trade aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPs, etc.) and on each of the so-called "Singapore" subjects that Mr Perez de Castillo therefore proposes to include in the scope of WTO agreements, namely investment, competition, transparency of public procurement and trade facilitation.
Some countries did not wait for the document to be submitted to the test of heads of delegation, on Monday in Geneva, before giving their reactions. They were particularly irritated by the approach or by the inclusion of elements in the text that could seal the direction taken by the talks until their completion, still scheduled for 1 January 2005. Such was the case of Japan, which, according to remarks taken up by AFP, points to "considerable problems" in the draft final declaration and call for it to be reviewed. "We shall do our best so that our voice is heard", Agriculture Minister Yoshiyuki Kamei said in a statement. African countries, for their part, whose agenda gives preference to abolishing subsidies without equal deployed by rich countries and to the opening of access to essential medicines, are rather pessimistic. "I am going to Cancun (…) but I do not think much will happen there, to be honest. We are not going to reach an agreement on these issues (dear to Africans)", predicts Zambian Minister for Trade Dipak Patel. His Tanzanian counterpart Juma Ngasongwa took up: "At the end of the day, we shall be pushed to take decisions that have a negative impact on us".