The Doha Round goes to sleep. Perhaps to wake some day: Talks suspended. ‘Today there are only losers.’ (WTO, July 24).
How do you cast a sleeping spell on a trade negotiation:
He [Pascal Lamy - Ben] is therefore recommending the talks be suspended in all subjects across the round as whole to give members time to reflect: “Time out to review the situation, time out to examine available options and time out to review positions,” he called it.
“In practical terms, this means that all work in all negotiating groups should now be suspended, and the same applies to the deadlines that various groups were facing,” he went on.
“It also means that the progress made to date on the various elements of the negotiating agenda is put on hold, pending the resumption of the negotiations when the negotiating environment is right. Significant progress has been made in all areas of the negotiations, and we must try together to reduce the risk that it unravels.”
What would it take to wake the negotiations up Doha round slung into the deep freeze (Alan Beattie and Frances WIlliams, Financial Times, July 24):
Historical experience provides a little hope but not firm ground for optimism. The previous “Uruguay round” of trade talks was in essence suspended in 1990 after similar disagreements between countries. Arthur Dunkel, then director-general of the WTO’s predecessor organisation, continued to take soundings among member countries and produced his own “Dunkel draft” suggestion for a final deal a year later, leading eventually to a final agreement in 1994.
But the current situation differs from 1990 in two respects: Pascal Lamy, the WTO’s director, has already been deeply involved in trying to get countries to agree, and because the White House is likely to lose the “fast-track authority” granted by Congress when it comes up for renewal next year.
WTO members can continue negotiating, but if the world’s largest economy cannot pass trade deals through its legislature, it seems unlikely the talks will have any urgency.
Peter Mandelson proposed pushing forward with parts of the Doha Round agenda: EU keen to save world trade from 'coma' (Helena Spongenberg, EU Observer, July 25).
But this appears to be a non-starter: Lamy snubs Mandelson on parts of Doha (Alan Beattie, Financial Times, July 26):
But the plan got a resounding "no" on Wednesday when it was put to the EU committee that negotiates trade facilitation. Pascal Lamy, WTO director-general, also poured cold water on the idea of extracting discrete elements: "Peter Mandelson and others may say: why don't we continue with what is painless for me? Unless and until we have an agenda for continuing the negotiations that is painless for everybody, we will not be able to do that."...
But extracting individual strands from the Doha talks violates the longstanding tradition that trade agreements are a "single undertaking" in which nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Mr Lamy said yesterday: "I don't think this situation has changed."
revised July 25
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