Brussels, 02/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - Heading up full teams, the trade ministers of the 146 member countries of the WTO, plus the Fifteen of the Union, will head off to Cancun late this week, where they will take stock and try to add much-needed momentum to the negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda, which is still worryingly struggling through many delicate and strategic issues. For the Europeans, to be led by Commissioners Lamy and Fischler, the international community cannot afford to fail, and "to go forward, decisions must be taken on agriculture and industrial tariffs" at the ministerial conference starting on 10 September, stressed a source in Brussels on Tuesday. These priority planks are among those causing increasingly worrying disagreements, despite recent improvements, such as that between the Union and the United States.
Eight days short of the meeting, which has been presented as a key test for the success of the cycle as a whole, the ministers have at least a basis to make progress in their negotiations, and to clarify several ambiguities left by the Doha Declaration, said a European source. On a certain number of important, "delicate" questions, including modalities for agricultural and non-agricultural negotiations, and on the launch of negotiations on so-called Singapore subjects (investment, competition, transparency and public procurement), clarifications and therefore "intermediate" decisions are expected, but on other, no less important issues, little is expected of Cancun. On issues such as liberalisation of trade in services, on which talks continued at technical level in Geneva on Tuesday, the WTO will adopt a final position only at the very end of the cycle. On agriculture, on the other hand, "we must adopt a declaration at Cancun to clarify the substance and scope of the- very general- Doha declaration", said a European source, welcoming the "much more specific draft now on the negotiating table". The ministers are to set the "framework" for negotiations until their end, anticipated for 1 January 2005, on the basis of the draft final declaration, which was prepared by the Uruguayan ambassador Carlos Perez de Castillo, who is chairing the negotiations in Geneva, and especially its agricultural annex. "It is not a question of putting figures in brackets, but of having a joint framework, consensual concepts", said a high-ranking European official, pointing out that in Doah, the WTO had nothing but disparate positions, and welcomed the approach formulated jointly by the transatlantic tandem, one of the merits of which is having greatly inspired the Presidency's draft.
Ministers now need to clarify what the developed countries and their developing partners should commit to do on each of the four essential areas of this agricultural negotiation, which are: 1) substantial reduction in internal aid: Europe believes that substantial reduction in aid which distorts exchanges (including in the orange box) should be a priority, and limiting aid linked to various production factors (blue box already submitted to certain disciplines), but not on the green box of direct aid which, Europe believes, has no impact on prices; 2) market access: the idea is to reduce the most sensitive tariffs "for everybody" (average and minimal reduction similar to that of the Uruguay cycle), reduce less sensitive tariffs (according to the so-called Swiss formula), and to do away with others (as EDPs enjoy "extremely significant" exemptions, and apply lower reductions to a list of special products, on which agreement is pending); 3) export subsidies, for which strict and parallel disciplines would cover European refunds as well as export credits practised elsewhere, such as the US, with strict rules to prevent the exploitation of food aid for commercial ends. On the commercial chapter, which represents "a large chunk" (90% of world trade and 70% of EDP exports), Europe hopes that a framework will be decided on, with a view to obtaining a stronger reduction on the higher tariffs for all products, getting rid of tariff peaks, and a certain degree of tariff standardisation for the various products imported into each country. On the industrial chapter, the compromise put forward by the Presidency "could potentially fulfil these objectives, but we are not there yet", said a Brussels source, pointing out that many questions remain open (including the list of products of specific interest to the EDPs, and the destiny of non-tariff barriers, etc). And in many other areas, which currently feature among the priority issues for the Europeans, the main questions remain unanswered, such as the so-called Singapore subjects (India is sticking doggedly to its reservation), geographical indications (multilateral register for wines and spirits and the extension of existing protection to other products, including foodstuffs: see EUROPE of 29 August, p.5), environment and fisheries. The Union "is not happy with many substantial aspects of the (Perez del Castillo) draft, but it is the kind of text that can be negotiated in Cancun".