Brussels, 09/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - The trade section of the EU/USA Summit on 21 June in Washington will be dominated by the multilateral negotiations on the Doha round rather than the Airbus/Boeing dispute which is now being handled by WTO arbiters, said American diplomats in Brussels. The decision to take the case to the WTO is “reasonable and fair” (which is disputed by Commissioner Peter Mandelson: EUROPE 8958), not only because the Geneva-based organisation is “the appropriate place” to resolve such a conflict in the absence of a negotiated agreement, but also because the transfer of this politically explosive dossier to the WTO “machinery” will prevent it from “infecting” other areas of EU/USA relations or impinging on multilateral negotiations at the WTO. The launch of the legal proceedings in the WTO does not, however, rule out a negotiated solution being found along the way, the Americans have underlined, pointing out that almost one third of cases brought before the WTO for arbitration are resolved through negotiation in the course of the process. “But that would require us first to reach an agreement on certain facts”, particularly the exact definition of the aid forbidden by the WTO. The debates and pleas to come before the WTO panels could help to establish these facts, which could down the line help to restart the search for an amicable bilateral agreement, said the American diplomats. On the background to the case, they deemed it “curious” that the Commission should have chosen to attack the subsidies received by Boeing under public research and development (R&D) programmes and military contracts, “given that Airbus is in a very similar situation”, making Airbus and the European position before the WTO “very vulnerable”. The fact that Commissioner - at the end of April, two days before the negotiations were definitively broken off - made public the content of a telephone conversation with the US Trade Representative Rob Portman (even though the two men had agreed to treat the conversation as strictly confidential) facilitated Washington's decision to go before the WTO, “but the incident was not a central factor” in the decision, which was based on an “in-depth analysis” of the facts.
Washington shares the concerns expressed last week by Mr Mandelson (see aforementioned EUROPE ) over the lack of progress in the negotiations on the Doha round, “where we are tending too much to sit and wait”. The Summit of 21 June will attempt to give a new political impetus in favour of more active “leadership” from the two sides in Geneva. The objective remains to have an “approximate" idea by the end of July of what could be decided on at the ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December, the US diplomats underlined. Washington still has some differences with the EU, notably on geographical indications and opening up the markets for agricultural products (where the EU is “too defensive”). On services, the USA has not yet finished examining the new revised offer from the EU (published last week, see EUROPE 8960), but the “first impression” seems to be disappointing “in as far as the improvements seem to reside in extending the initial offer (which dates from April 2003) the ten new Member States” of the EU, said the US diplomats.
Luxembourg Presidency still hopeful of an amicable agreement on Airbus/Boeing at Washington Summit to avoid WTO arbitration
Although legal proceedings on Airbus/Boeing have just been launched at the WTO, the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU appears to still be hopeful of a last-minute negotiated agreement at the Washington Summit, which would avoid what Commissioner Peter Mandelson has described as a “long, complex and costly legal battle” in Geneva. “We hope that at the upcoming Summit we can arrive at a satisfactory solution to avoid this case ending up at the WTO and thereby weighing on the future of Euro-Atlantic relations”, declared the Luxembourg European Affairs Minister Nicolas Schmit on Wednesday in Strasbourg at the debate in the European Parliament on the transatlantic partnership (which we will come back to).