Where do the Doha Round negotiations go now, following yesterday's collapse of the meeting of WTO member trade ministers in Geneva?
Peter Mandelson, the E.U. Trade Commissioner, doesn't think we've reached the end of the Doha Round, yet (WTO talks neither "success or disaster" - Mandelson, Rueters via NDTV Profit.com, July 2):
European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson said on Saturday talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) aimed at saving its Doha round had been neither a "success or disaster."
But he said a deal on farm and industrial goods, the initial goal of this weekend's WTO meeting, must be struck by the end of July.
"The cost of failure should be ringing alarm bells in the ears of governments," he told journalists as the talks drew to a close.
Mandelson said that trade ministers, several dozen of whom had come to Geneva, had agreed that WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy should take on the responsibility of trying to narrow differences in the coming two weeks or so.
In order for ministers to agree a deal at the end of July, they would need the outlines of a pact within two weeks because they would then need time to study it, he added.
"Two weeks of building convergence and two weeks for digesting (it) is the only available timetable," he said.
Mandelson, who has come under pressure to agree to lower EU farm tariffs as part of a hoped-for pact, said that Lamy should act as "the catalyst but not the author" of any deal.
He also said that heads of government of the G6 group of countries -- Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States -- could meet during the month. The G6 has been taking the lead in the search for a farm deal.
Such a meeting could take place at the G8 summit of leading industrial powers later this month in St Petersburg, he said in answer to a question.
Pascal Lamy will be trying to think through how to proceed. The end of this month really is it for modalities. By the way, here's a nice description of the relation between modalities and the detail work that must follow:
Members are trying to reach agreement on “modalities” in agriculture and industrial products. These will include formulas for cutting tariffs in both and subsidies in agriculture, along with other details such as flexibilities for political and developmental purposes, along with other disciplines.
The “modalities” are needed so that countries can list their new commitments to reduce tariffs on thousands of products and to cut farm subsidies. The lists will be in documents known as “schedules” that will run to several hundred pages per country and to tens of thousands of pages for the whole membership.
From Lamy: Ministers here, but will there be negotiations? (WTO, June 30).
These schedules will take a lot of time to prepare. August vacations in many places will preclude getting much work on them done, and they have to be done and agreed to by the end of December, or early next year - maybe 16-20 weeks (because of timing constraints associated with US approval processes. The end of July does, really, look like the end of the line for modalities.
So Pascal Lamy must be thinking hard about how to approach this problem. Yesterday morning he told a meeting of the WTO's Doha Round Trade Negotiations Committee:
Although we must admit that we are in crisis mode, the situation is not hopeless. Over the broad scope of the DDA, the picture is by no means dismal. Positive and substantive progress has and is being made in a number of areas. However, the fact remains that all this effort and progress in a large number of areas are at risk and probably would disappear if the modalities are not unblocked. I have heard good news in the very strong commitment from you to the objective of concluding the Round before the end of this year. There has been total unanimity on this point, so the question is to find a way to preserve this chance of finishing this negotiation before the end of the year.
On the basis of the suggestions that have emerged in the informal consultations, and in the informal TNC session just preceding this meeting, regarding further process towards establishing these modalities, I would like to propose that we agree as follows:
First, that in view of the crisis in the negotiations, the TNC request me to conduct intensive and wide-ranging consultations with the aim of facilitating the urgent establishment of modalities in agriculture and NAMA;
Second, that my consultations should be based on the draft texts prepared by the Chairs of the negotiating groups; and
Third, that I should report to the TNC as soon as possible.
In the light of a number of your observations, I want to be clear that these consultations will aim at facilitating and catalyzing agreement among the membership in this time of crisis, and that you the Members continue to remain the main actors in the process. And these consultations, if agreed, will be pursued fully in keeping with the principle of a bottom-up approach, and respect for transparency and inclusiveness, which I think you know by now that I am very committed to, and which is, I believe, the way we have proceeding until now, and I do not intend to change this.
From: Chairman's statement at the formal TNC meeting of 1 July 2006 (WTO, July 1)
Kamal Nath, the Indian Commerce Minister, who was first to leave Geneva, thinks there will be another ministerial before the end of July: Another WTO meeting by July end: Kamal Nath. (The Times of India, July 2):
"I hope that there is another meeting by the end of this month," Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said on his return on Sunday morning from the WTO mini-ministerial meeting in Geneva.
He said with the collapse of talks at Geneva, the target of December 2006 for completion of Doha round looks more difficult.
Nath said he decided to return from Geneva two days before the meeting was scheduled to end as there was no "negotiating space."
He said India could not have been part of any agreement that did not address "the
development concerns of developing countries".Developed countries will have to address trade-distorting subsidies in agriculture, he said adding that he had gone to Geneva to see "what Indian farmers can get and not what they can give."
"Our infant industries should be protected and economic growth should be enhanced," he said.
On the US charge that developing countries were seeking protection for 98 per cent of their products, Nath said they are in fact seeking "100 per cent protection" for agriculture and infant industries.
He said it is a "period of reflection" for developed countries as they could provide
leadership to strenghten a multilateral trading system.
Comments