The Custom-House

What's in it for Brazil?

What's does the Doha Round agricultural negotiation have to offer a large emerging economy like Brazil's:

New EU proposals

The EU made its new agricultural proposals today.

This press release from EU Agricultural Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel provides details: EU tables new offer in Doha World Trade talks; calls for immediate movement on services and industrial goods.

The EU proposes:

New EU proposals tomorrow

EU leaders, meeting at a summit in the UK, announced that a revised set of negotiating proposals will be presented on Friday: EU confirms to make new WTO offer on farm trade tomorrow (AFX News, Oct 27, via Forbes).

The Doha Round and the 2007 Farm Bill

Once the Doha Round has been completed, the agreements will still have to be incorporated into member country statutes and regulations.

In the United States, important agreements on domestic subsidies for farmers will need to be incorporated into the next farm bill.

There are a lot more episodes in this serial

The Doha Round has gone through more perils than Pauline . 

Peter Gallagher puts the current cliff-hanger into perspective, and points out that there are more to come: High drama and low politics .

Gallagher points out that a sense of crisis "helps governments press beyond established positions."  The negotiations aren't over when the current crisis is resolved.  Don't expect the agricultural package to be completed when the EU submits its new agricultural proposals (probablyThursday this week).  A lot of issues will remain; expect a lot more crises.  The agricultural package may not come together until next April-June. 

EU gives Mandelson go-ahead, again

The EU's chief trade negotiator, Peter Mandelson, has been given authority to make new agricultural proposals: Mandelson Wins Backing to Make New WTO Farm Offer   (Jennifer Freedman , Bloomberg, Oct 25).

``This offer would be a conditional offer which would enable other WTO members to make further moves in relation to agriculture, industrial goods and services,'' Mandelson's spokesman, Peter Power, said in a statement today. ``It was agreed that the EU offer should be substantive and credible and within the mandate'' of the bloc's agriculture policy.

As I understand it from earlier stories, a new offer could be put forward on Thursday, in time for a scheduled Friday teleconference between negotiators from five key countries (EU, the United States, India, Australia and Brazil).

Doha on the "knife's edge"

Not a lot of surface Doha Round action today (Monday), but Sophie Walker surveys the day's rumors: EU farm struggle casts doubt on WTO Hong Kong meet (Reuters.UK, Oct 24). 

Two points from this:

Doha: the desperate hours

The stalemate in the Doha Round agricultural negotiations continues:

Doha stalemate

A meeting of E.U. foreign ministers on Tuesday, called by France to review the Doha Round negotiations, apparently gave E.U. negotiator Peter Mandelson approval to push forward with the agricultural negotiations. 

However, a strong reaction by France since then appears to have thrown things off the tracks...

Continuing Doha stalemate

In today's (Wednesday's) negotiating session between the "Five Interested Parties", the E.U., the U.S., Brazil, India and Australia, the E.U. did not make any new agriculture proposals.   E.U. subsidy and tariff compromises are important to progress on agriculture, but France is strongly opposed to further concessions.   

The five parties meet tomorrow with the trade ministers from Canada, Japan, Switzerland, and three other countries, but this is not billed as a negotiating session.

Richard Waddington and William Schomberg report: US, EU warn WTO deal in danger as talks fail .