Thursday at the WTO Agricultural

Thursday at the WTO

Agricultural negotiations, dominated by the US, EU, Brazil, India, and Australia, (the so-called "Five Interested Parties," or "FIP") continued until midnight Wednesday or early Thursday morning. The five have now turned their ideas over to New Zealand Ambassador Tim Groser, the WTO's chief agricultural negotiator.   Elizabeth Becker of the New York Times reports that the U.S. made significant concessions during the evening "U.S. and Europe Reach Informal Agreement on Agriculture".

"..With less than two days remaining, delegates and officials said that the United States in particular had made significant new compromises on Wednesday night, inspiring cautious optimism that the talks will lead to an agreement and advance the Doha round of trade for the developing nations...

While officials were reluctant to describe specifics of the discussions or even describe them as an agreement, they did say that the United States seemed willing to put off some of its more contentious demands on agricultural subsidies and, instead, offer to make specific cuts in other areas..."

Groser is to finish turning these ideas into a document describing an agricultural framework, and he and WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi are to present a complete version of the revised framework covering all the issues late Thursday night, or possibly Friday morning. (see this Associated Press story: "WTO Proposal Delayed As Govt's Struggle", and this Richard Waddington story for Reuters: "Hopes for WTO trade deal rise".)

This Reuters dispatch indicates that a number of countries feel "left out" of this process ("Fate of World Trade Talks Hangs in Balance"):

"At a stormy meeting late on Wednesday, a number of countries also expressed anger at the special role being given to the FIP countries, saying that they would not be steamrollered into accepting a text just because it had been approved by them."

This South African Mail & Guardian story amplifies on the frustrations felt by some countries not included among the five core countries in the negotiations: "Trade talks by big five spark outrage".

The WTO held a "Heads of Delegation" briefing meeting late last night about 10 PM (the "stormy meeting" of the Reuters dispatch?). The meeting is described in a WTO release this morning: "Supachai welcomes input from the Five as a key first step".

"...At chairperson Oshima�s invitation, Ambassador Groser reported on the latest state of play in the agriculture negotiations. He said he was �in a much better frame of mind� than he had been that morning because he had received clearer guidance on how to narrow the gaps on major differences. He said he would not spell out the details yet, preferring to go through all the many proposals he had received first.

But Ambassador Groser did hint that progress had been made on how to deal with subsidized export credit, food aid and state trading enterprises, in a way that would match the proposal to get rid of export subsidies by a negotiated date. He also said complaints about the unequal treatment for developed countries� sensitive products (which are described in some detail in the current draft), and developing countries� provisions for their �special products�, would be amended in response to the complaints.

There is now a real chance of �saving the Doha Round�, he said. Meanwhile parallel talks are underway on the cotton initiative, Ambassador Groser reported..."

The goal of this week's meetings is to produce a draft Doha Round framework agreement. This agreement will provide negotiators with a framework for future, more detailed, negotiations in coming months. The framework identifies the subjects to address and the approaches to take to them.

A final agreement is due sometime before the General Council meeting ends on Friday. Various news stories talk about a mid-night deadline, but one recent story is talking about a meeting running into early Saturday. The framework document was originally expected on Tuesday or Wednesday. Yesterday it was hoped to have something early Thursday. Now delivery is late Thursday night or Friday morning.  This late delivery doesn't give much time for delegations to review it, debate it, or consult with their home governments. If there is much controversy about the delivered document, there may not be any time for further revision. Representatives of the FIP countries have been briefing other groups privately on the Wednesday night outcomes on Thursday, pending release of the final document.

This EUPolitix story notes that the EU negotiator, Pascal Lamy, must defend the proposals before a meeting of EU foreign ministers. Ministerial approval is needed for the EU to sign off on any agreement. Some EU states, including but not limited to France are concerned that too many concessions may have been made: "EU to quiz Lamy on new WTO deal"  This meeting was originally scheduled for Thursday, but this story from Channel NewsAsia reports that the meeting has been postponed until Friday morning, because of the delays in preparation of the framework document: "Tempers fray as WTO talks rumble on without result".

I'll close out today's post with some notes on Paul Blustein's story in tomorrow's Washington Post ("5 Powers Agree at WTO on Farm Talks").

• There was still a lot of uncertainty among the delegations about the nature of the agreements that had been worked out among the "Five interested parties."


• The draft was still being rewritten late on Thursday night, and was still "hours and hours" away.


• Although the deadline was midnight Friday, the draft is so late that to give delegations more time for review and consultation with their governments, the deadline may be extended 24 hours.


• I mentioned above, based on another, earlier, story, that FIP spokesment had been briefing delegations on the agreements worked out last night.  Blustein reports that FIP spokesmen have remained "silent on the substance of the agreement for fear of fuleing resentment among the other WTO members left out of the elite group."


• "Just as optimism surged about the agriculture text, officials said a number of developing countries are balking at a proposed formula for cutting tariffs on industrial goods. The formula would require countries with high tariffs to reduce them much more sharply than countries with low tariffs.

  That is a major goal of the United States and the European Union, which hope to swap concessions in agriculture for concessions that would help their big industrial exporters sell their products more easily around the world. But the prospect of freer trade in manufactured products unnerves many developing countries that fear being overwhelmed by competition from China."

Revised Thursday, July 29, (7:30 PM Alaska time)