Brussels, 27/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - The current paralysis affecting the discussions between the G4 group of trading powers (EU, United States, Brazil and India) is beginning to really annoy the other WTO members, who fear that the G4 will fail to begin to reach a consensus on liberalisation arrangements (figures and other provisions) which are deemed to be essential within two months so that the Doha Round can be concluded by the end of the year. Failing this, they have decided to increase multilateral talks within the various negotiating groups at the WTO headquarters on Geneva, without awaiting the G4 compromise.
EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on 23 April noted that mid-June had been set as the target date for reaching a sufficient level of convergence on the key issues of the Doha Round within the G4; the results of these four-way discussions will thereafter be put to the WTO membership as a whole in the following months, with the aim of concluding negotiations before the end of the year. But, as WTO Director General Pascal Lamy acknowledged himself in a speech on Wednesday to the American Chamber of Commerce in Washington (see EUROPE 9413), the Europeans, Americans, Brazilians and Indians “are somewhat paralysed by fear that any move in the negotiation by any one of them will be pocketed by the others and will not lead to reciprocal moves”. He added: “If WTO members do not energise the negotiations soon, governments will be forced to confront the unpleasant reality of failure”.
During a meeting of the trade negotiations committee on 20 April, a few days before Mr Lamy travelled to Washington, the 150 member countries set the heads of the various negotiating committees (agriculture, services, industrial goods, rules etc) the task of quickly drawing up compromise texts without waiting for the outcome of the G4 talks. “The multilateral process cannot wait for the contributions of the smaller groups any longer,” Mr Lamy said after the meeting. The reaction was swift: on Thursday, the head of the agricultural negotiations committee, New Zealand ambassador Crawford Falconer, promised to “provoke” debate among the member countries with proposals for reductions in subsidies and agricultural customs duties, backed up by figures, in the hope of finding a compromise, a diplomatic source within the WTO headquarters revealed. There are “two or three topics within the crucial farm trade negotiations where a 'centre of gravity' could be found,” Mr Falconer said, summarising the state of talks on the agriculture section. While acknowledging that “in other areas, negotiators are all a million miles from anywhere” and admitting that “I haven't the faintest idea of how I'm supposed to invent a solution to this, because you're all too damned far apart,” he said he intended to bring forward a “document on the challenges” in order to “provoke discussions” among member countries, in the hope of finding a compromise. This document will then be discussed by the agricultural negotiations committee on 7 May.
Possible minima agreement on trade facilitation?
According to the Swiss daily Le Temps, there is a possibility that WTO members will accept a minima agreement on one or more of the negotiation areas by the end of the year, and consider the remainder at a later time. If it is true that negotiators, while not saying it openly, accept that it will be impossible to conclude the Round by 30 June and the expiry of the US negotiation authority, “in such a scenario, a minima agreement would revolve around the trade facilitation section,” said the chief Swiss WTO negotiator and economy minister Doris Leuthard, giving assurances that all countries wanted to get rid of administrative barriers, which slow trade. This hypothesis was confirmed by a WTO official quoted by Le Temps: “Developing countries, which expect a lot from the Doha agenda, would not endorse such a compromise,” he said. However, elsewhere, Ms Leuthard, too, criticised the negotiation strategy between the G4 powers, pointing out that, foremost among the G10 agricultural importing countries, “Switzerland wants breakthroughs in all areas, not just in agriculture, which interests only agricultural exporters like the United States and Brazil”. (eh)