Brussels, 28/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - As a result of delays in the technical consultations at the World Trade Organisation's headquarters in Geneva, particularly in the farm talks, the timetable of Doha Round negotiations might have to be postponed again. Initially scheduled to take place in Geneva in the week of 19 May 2008 (although never actually formalised by the WTO leaders), the meeting of ministers to decide on the outline of a compromise on the details of how trade in farm products and NAMAs (manufactured goods) is to be liberalised may be postponed until later in May, early June or July.
Seeking solutions to several technical, but controversial, issues, like sensitive products, tropical products and products to which beneficial customs duties apply, the farm negotiators called on 21 April 2008 for more time - at least a week - to tie up the knots. New Zealander Crawford Falconer was therefore forced to convene a new meeting of the farm negotiating committee (that he chairs) on 30 April 2008 and also to postpone the publication of a new version of his revised draft compromise, initially scheduled for the end of April, given the impossibility of writing it in a mere 48 hours. At the WTO headquarters, people say it is only a matter a days, but this new hitch risks slowing down the 'horizontal process' of tying up the ends of the two main areas of talks at Doha - farm products and NAMAs. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, who hopes agreement will be reached before the US presidential elections in November, had clearly been planning for the first trade-offs among ambassadors on the new revised compromise deals by Falconer and his counterpart for NAMAs, Canadian Don Stephenson, to take place in the week of 5 May 2008, ahead of the final talks at ministerial level the week of 19 May. He is reported to already be planning other dates, like the week of 26 May or 2 June, but Lamy also has to consider logistical issues like the Euro 2008 football championships in Austria and Switzerland from 7-29 June 2008. Geneva simply does not have enough hotels and the Swiss authorities do not have sufficient security resources to have both a WTO ministerial meeting and Euro 2008 going on at the same time. Finally, in order to conclude the round before the end of the year, the month of July seems to be the last possible option.
A new delay would give the delegations time to settle their differences on the compromise deals currently being discussed, namely on estimating internal consumption - which will be used to calculate import quota tariffs for sensitive products. While most negotiators believe the draft deal drawn up on this issue by six countries - Australia, Brazil, Canada, the United States, Japan and the EU - makes real progress, some are concerned about several points. Others have been calling for more details in very technical areas, in response to which the Six have published a 12-page explanatory document. The problem lies in tropical products (which will be subject to faster and higher tariff reductions than normal) and preferential products (with slower and possibly lower tariff reductions), where the lists of products often coincide although the two lists would be subject to totally different treatment. In addition, some tropical products on the list are also import sensitive products for developing countries.
In Europe, France is continuing to mobilise against a WTO farm deal in May, raising several objections. At the EU Agriculture Council earlier this month and in the media since then, France has made it clear that it will not agree to farm concession without corresponding industrial and services concessions in return. But although Brazil has shown signs of flexibility, South Africa, Argentina and India are continuing to argue for a limited opening of their markets to developed countries. The services negotiations are well behind schedule. Against a backdrop of the global food crisis, France is also opposing any reduction in farm tariffs and is putting food self-sufficiency back on the menu (self-sufficiency in food was one of the founding principles of the EU's common agricultural policy). France is also raising a domestic objection - the farm talks at the WTO have got embroiled in the campaign around the Lisbon Reform Treaty in Ireland, where a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty will take place on 12 June 2008. Dublin supports the French view. Opinion polls suggest that most voters have not yet made up their minds about the treaty, but 10,000 farmers demonstrated in the streets of Dublin against a WTO deal on 17 April 2008, right under the nose of the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso. EU sources comment that a farm deal at the WTO in May runs the risk of having a huge impact on the referendum vote in a country where the farm lobby is hugely powerful.
In Berlin on 23 April 2008, the German secretary of state for agriculture, Gert Lindemann, expressed serous doubts about the possibility of a breakthrough at the WTO in May. He said that no progress had been made on industrial products and services, and at the same time the EU had conceded more and more ground on farm questions, adding that this was not the right way to proceed. EU sources suggest that the Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel shares this view, in disagreement with the EU's chief negotiator at the WTO, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. (E.H.)