Brussels/Cancun, 09/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - In Cancun where "everything appears to be difficult and at the same time possible" for overcoming their divisions on around twenty of the chapters negotiated in the Doha Development Agenda, the , the 147 delegations from World Trade Organisation member countries were sharpening up their arguments on Tuesday and drawing the attention to the noisy demonstrations of anti-globalisation demonstrators. On Wednesday, the institutions will open the Fifth Ministerial Conference in the morning (in the afternoon in the European time zone). Initially planned to provide a boost for the last part of the Round is planned up to the new order on 1 January 2005, this event is more and more seen as a mid term review or important intermediary stage in the difficult process where each previously arranged meeting has missed the boat. The summit agenda in fact, remains dangerously overloaded and its task is particularly complex, despite the healthy record since the end of August on the access of the poorest sections of society in the world to essential medicines.
Once the technical bodies have fine-tuned the preparations and the last consultation meetings over recent days has taken place, trade Ministers from WTO member countries will begin the session that in principle should be continued till Sunday, even if extensions are possible for a day or two like at Seattle and Doha. They will begin in the afternoon, just after the series of inaugural speeches from figures whose jobs place them above the mêlée, such as Director General of the organisation, Supachai Panichpakdi from Thailand and UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan. Their host, the Head of Mexican diplomacy, Luis Ernesto Derbez, who will Chair the conference and Uruguayan Ambassador, Carlos Perez del Castillo, who is the Chair of the General Council - the decision making body of the organisation, which will also point out to their counterparts the importance of and the conditions for success.
At the time of the final declaration, Carlos Perez del Castillo, who headed the preparatory work at Geneva, sent the summit a "covering letter", presenting the progress that has been achieved: in first place - the "historic and significant" agreement on copyright and public health and "key areas" on which "convergence is still lacking". With regard to these largely sensitive and controversial issues, the Chairman of the General Council, resumed the tasks facing the Ministers if progress is going to be achieved "in a context that generally positive", in other words, if everyone is flexible in the traditional political game of crossed and inter-sector concessions .
1. Agriculture: "one of the most sensitive areas in negotiations" and where the 147 members are largely in disagreement on the methods for commitments at the end of the round. The Geneva process now needs a "boost", beginning with an agreement on a framework approach (which will define the objectives and ambitions for the reform programmed as much as possible but without at this stage setting out the reduction figures agreed to), which will "undoubtedly need considerable work" at Cancun. Then Ministers will be able to give a direction to the work for establishing methods for the programmed reform, including reduction figures, an issue that for the moment is inextricably linked and fundamental. Mr Perez del Castillo stressed the "levels for ambitions for internal support, market access and export competitiveness (the three pillars of this reform), as well as the final balance will depend largely on the figures negotiated once the framework has been agreed". The framework that he is proposing is considered as a starting point for Cancun by "many" but for a "significant" number, it is not sufficiently balanced. This is the case for the Group of Twenty, led by the unlikely alliance of the three large developing countries in the world, Brazil, India and China, especially on agreement on blocking the way to the European attempt to promote a distinction between them (large exporters, agricultural products, cheap goods and services) and the rest of the developing countries.
2. Negotiating methods on market access for industrial goods and other non-agricultural products - Negotiators at Geneva are calling on Ministers to agree to two approaches they are opposing: one, the more ambitious, aims to reduce compulsory sector tariffs or eliminate the, while the other supports a formula for reducing tariffs that is more modest and only consists of voluntary sector components. The majority of LDCs are included here and are opposed to the "radical" cuts demanded by the industrialised countries.
3. The so-called Singapore issues (investment, competition, public procurement, trade facilitation require an "explicitly consensual" decision on the "negotiating methods". The problem is precisely that of consensus between the others and principally the Europeans, who want the green light to be given to negotiations, while their opponents, still led by the determined India, are insisting on the continuation of the analytical work begun in Geneva.
4. Negotiations on the details of the special and differentiated treatment promised to developing countries have made progress although some developing countries are pledging to fight hard to flesh out the package of measures proposed for adoption in Cancun. There are still significant differences over problems encountered by developing countries in implementing agreements under the Uruguay Round.
This heavily laden agenda will be supplemented by a series of demands raised at the end of the Geneva process, namely the African cotton initiative (see below) and the sensitive issue of deadlines for ending the Round. It may prove profitable to extend the Round, note some of the EU's partners, including the tough but unavoidable negotiators for Brazil and India. India does not stand to gain very much from the Cancun Summit, but politicians have an eye on the upcoming federal elections in 2004.