|
||
|
TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Jun24/04) Geneva, 7 Jun (D. Ravi Kanth) — Several industrialized countries, including the United States as well as developing countries including China, on 5 June actively engaged in the informal process proposed by Brazil on how to move the agriculture negotiations forward, said people familiar with the development. However, at that meeting, several other developing and least-developed countries, including India, signalled their apparent indifference to a parallel informal process outside the discussions that come under the purview of the Doha agriculture negotiating body, namely, the Committee on Agriculture Special Session (COASS), said people familiar with the discussions. Brazil, which has been piloting the informal process based on its proposal (WT/GC/W/931) submitted on 8 April, has apparently held two informal meetings – on 30 May and 5 June – in which many members took part while delivering somewhat mixed responses on the process-related issues, said people familiar with the development. At both informal meetings, Brazil is understood to have said that it will go ahead with the informal process, including a heads of delegation meeting before formally submitting an outcome at the end-July WTO General Council meeting, said people familiar with the discussions. Though Brazil has maintained in a previous meeting that the informal process “complements” the mandated COASS negotiating forum, several developing countries stated that they would only engage in the ongoing discussions at the COASS, said people who asked not to be quoted. “Positions are too far apart and eventually everything has to come to the COASS,” said a trade envoy, who asked not to be quoted. Significantly, several industrialized countries including the US and the United Kingdom, as well as China, and members of the Cairns Group of farm-exporting countries and the Caribbean countries extended their support to Brazil’s proposed informal process, said people who asked not to be quoted. When asked about the growing concerns of several developing countries with Brazil’s proposed informal process, a proponent of the informal process said: “No developing country is unhappy. India was there yesterday for the second time and did not dissociate.” The proponent added: “There is nothing to dissociate from, as it is completely informal. The DG is fully in support as is the COASS chair from Turkey. The US and China are in full support, and the EU is very much there. (There was) a full room (of members who took part in the meeting).” Even though some industrialized countries like the US seemed to be open to the informal discussions on the Brazilian proposal, privately, they reckon that nothing would come out of these discussions, said another trade envoy, who asked not to be quoted. During the WTO’s General Council meeting last month, China said that “taking into account the current situation and the multiple challenges facing members, especially the developing members, we call on members to kick off frank and effective dialogues, to mull on the way forward in a creative, practical and constructive way, rather than to repeat previous failures.” China also cautioned that “the position-repeating approach will not lead agriculture to a successful outcome.” “The world has changed … We have to think in a new way and find out new approaches. Long-standing issues, food security, responses to climate change and so on, they all need us to find solutions.” At that General Council meeting, the WTO Director-General, Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, welcomed Brazil’s proposal, suggesting that she is confident that an outcome on agriculture is possible following the Brazilian initiative, said people familiar with the development. BRAZIL’S PROPOSAL Brazil on 8 April tabled a draft decision aimed at “moving the agriculture negotiations forward”, proposing that members adopt a decision at the General Council meeting in July before the summer break. Coming close on the heels of a failure to arrive at any outcome on agriculture at the WTO’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi in March, the Brazilian proposal suggests some significant changes in arriving at modalities in all areas, particularly on domestic support, before the WTO’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14), scheduled to take place in Cameroon in 2026. However, Brazil suggested one major change by deleting the first option on the permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security, as outlined in the revised MC13 draft agriculture text that was prepared by the EU, where two options were proposed. TIMELINES In its draft decision, Brazil proposed the following timelines for implementation: * In order to achieve tangible progress and concrete outcomes, Members instruct the CoA-SS Chair to provide, based on Members’ contributions, annual negotiating schedules to discuss all aspects, including the elements and the methodology, of each of the negotiating topics in this Decision. * The General Council shall regularly review progress in these negotiations. * Senior Officials will review the progress achieved in the negotiations one year after MC13, particularly in relation to the definition of the elements and the methodology of implementation of the reform, and make recommendations for the way forward. * Members shall adopt an intermediate framework of the agreement 4 months before MC14. This framework shall provide a comprehensive view of the basic structures of the agreement or other outcomes to be delivered by MC14 and may include texts with different levels of maturity. * Members shall adopt a decision on modalities by MC14. * Modalities shall be implemented as a package taking into consideration the overall balance of outcomes in Agriculture in a time-frame to be decided by Members. In short, at a time when the WTO is facing systemic crises due to the alleged non-adherence by some major members to the rules and mandates set out since the WTO’s fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar, in 2001, creating parallel or plurilateral processes risks undermining its credibility, said people familiar with the discussions.
|
||
