Brussels, 11/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - After six months of discussions on the basis of draft texts published on 17 July last year (EUROPE 9471), the presidents of the negotiation committees on agriculture and access to the non-agricultural market, Crawford Falconer and Don Stephenson, ambassadors to the WTO of New Zealand and Canada respectively, submitted their draft revised compromises on Friday 8 January in Geneva, on the details for the liberalisation of trade in agriculture and manufactured products (NAMA). Acknowledging before the press that their revised texts contained “no surprises”, the two mediators confirmed that differences of opinion subsisted between the developed and developing countries.
“There are no new figures compared to the proposals from six months ago, but the text [on agriculture: Ed] is more comprehensive”, Mr Falconer explained. “The headlines have not changed, the political choices are still there”, he added. “There are a number of key questions which can only be resolved at ministerial level. Only if the political will exists can these differences be overcome”, the agricultural mediator to the WTO concluded. The revised document of his Canadian colleague “reflects the state of negotiations on industrial goods” and “the lack of consensus” between the developed countries, which are more ambitious on this chapter, and the developing countries. “I can only commit governments to explore concrete bargaining between the formula for the reduction coefficient for industrial tariffs and the leeway on offer”, Mr Stephenson noted.
The revised texts show that the positions have come some way closer to each other on a number of technical questions, since July 2007, in particular on the issue of exemptions granted in terms of tariff reductions for sensitive products (developed countries) and special products (developing countries) and in terms of safeguard mechanisms. The details are now clear on the extent to which this flexibility will be granted to the developing countries, to new members and to small and vulnerable economies. Certain details, however, are still to be settled over the coming weeks, during which the 151 member countries will continue their talks and refine their positions. It remains for them to define the “big numbers” on access to the agricultural and industrial markets and on agricultural subsidies. If the range of figures proposed last July remains unchanged, the final decision will have to be taken at political level by the Trade Ministers at a ministerial conference, which WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy may call for the month of April in Geneva. Speaking to the press, Mr Falconer stated that negotiations were now expected to enter into a new process of cross-cutting bargaining between the two dossiers of agriculture and NAMA. For his part, Mr Lamy welcomed the documents, which are “now comprehensive”. “It is clear that we are now a step closer to looking across both these issues as we try to find the final balance for an ambitious and development-oriented round”, he concluded.
Agriculture - Mr Falconer's revised text, therefore, contains “no surprises” in comparison to his previous text. “I have not tried to invent solutions when they are not there”, he commented. “I cannot specify the figures any further without a decision by the ministers. I have tried to build a structure on which potential decisions can be made. The members know very well what those choices are”, he said. Referring to novelties in the revised text, a Community source spoke of “some marginal flexibility for the developing countries” and the removal of a great many “hooks” (figures or other parts of the text which are still open to negotiation), particularly on the first pillar of the agricultural plank, that of internal support, in which Mr Falconer has, amongst other things, maintained his proposal to set the annual total sum of subsidies paid by the United States to its farmers at between 12.8 and 16.4 billion dollars. EUROPE will return to the “big figures” of the agricultural plank in tomorrow's edition.
Industrial products - Mr Stephenson explained that his text offered “more manoeuvre margins”. Further to criticism voiced by the developing countries on the NAMA-11 (EUROPE 9524), the Canadian ambassador has relaxed the negotiation framework on the liberalisation of trade in industrial products. The agreement is based on a Swiss formula with two separate tariff reduction coefficients applicable to the developed and to the developing countries. The July figures remain unchanged: the new text proposes tariff reduction coefficients within a scale of between 8 and 9 for the developed countries and 19 and 23 for the developing countries. Mr Stephenson has, however, removed from his text the figure of 10% as a limit on the number of products which a country may protect from an overly steep drop in its customs duties. “It is not a step backwards, it reflects the state of the negotiations. Have I given in to pressure? I have listened to all the members”, Mr Stephenson pointed out. The Canadian ambassador raised the possibility of negotiating an à la carte “mobile scale” between the customs tariff reductions and the percentage of sensitive products which will be subjected to a lesser reduction: the more country agrees to reduce all of its customs duties, the more sensitive products it may keep in place. (E.H.)