[E-rundbrief] Info 430 - WTO-Doha-Round suspended officially

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 430 - WTO General Council officially suspends 
talks indefinitely. (Agence Europe)

Bad Ischl, 28.7.2006

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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(EU) EU/WTO/DOHA: WTO General Council officially suspends talks indefinitely

Brussels, 27/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - In Geneva, on Thursday, at the 
request of WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, the ambassadors of the 
149 WTO member nations, meeting in General Council, officially agreed 
to suspend Doha Round talks indefinitely after the stalled meeting on 
24 July when the major G-6 trading powers (EU, United States, Brazil, 
India, Australia and Japan) were unable to reach a compromise on the 
modalities (figures and other provisions) for trade liberalisation in 
agricultural products and non-agricultural manufactured articles 
(NAMA). The members "noted" Pascal Lamy's report recommending that 
discussions on global trade liberalisation be suspended, without 
setting a date for resumption of the talks. During the meeting, 
several speakers deplored the fact that the G-6 had not been able to 
reach a compromise. The ambassador of New Zealand and Chairman of the 
Committee on Agricultural Negotiations, Crawford Falconer, called on 
members not to withdraw their agricultural offers from the 
negotiation table. Furthermore, except for Australia, all the other 
G-6 members accused the United States of being responsible for the 
collapse of the talks by refusing to accept greater restraints on 
domestic subsidies and refusing to lower its demands regarding market access.
Pascal Lamy challenges idea of withdrawing development package from 
overall talks

Although admitting that this hypothesis could not be ruled out in 
time, Pascal Lamy, who was speaking on RFI no Thursday, repeated that 
it was premature to speak of a collapse of the Doha Round and that it 
was more reasonable to speak of a "pause" or "time out". The WTO 
Director General acknowledged that discussions have stumbled over a 
"small part of this enormous negotiation", namely the reduction of 
agricultural subsidies (domestic support) and agricultural customs 
duties (market access) which, although they do not constitute the 
main part of the negotiations, oppose the United States on one side 
and Europe on the other. When asked about the risk of mushrooming 
regional and bilateral agreements, Mr Lamy admitted that this risk 
has already come about in part. He went on to say, however, that 
there is less risk if these bilateral agreements are a complement to 
progress made at multilateral level.

Pascal Lamy is also far from sharing the view of Trade Commissioner 
Peter Mandelson, who called last Tuesday for the development package 
to be removed from the talks and for provisions in favour of 
developing countries, especially the poorest developing countries, to 
be implemented . The Financial Times headline reads: "Lamy snubs 
Mandelson on parts of Doha", stressing that Mandelson's plans 
received a "resounding no". The suggestion that was received the most 
coolly was that on "pursuing the strand on trade facilitation" 
(setting rules for getting goods through customs cheaply and 
rapidly). "Pascal Lamy 
 also poured cold water on the idea of 
extracting discrete elements" from talks, The Financial Times states, 
citing comments by the director general: "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". The FT 
asserts, moreover, that the United States - which, with Japan, were 
the most reticent during the Hong Kong meeting last December to offer 
duty- and quota-free market access to products from the poorest 
countries - signalled it did not consider itself bound by the Hong 
Kong commitment to offer this 97% access by 2008 without overall 
agreement. Finally, the extraction of one or several elements from 
the talks on the package as a whole would be violation of the 
principle of "single undertaking", meaning that "nothing is agreed 
until everything is agreed". "I do not believe this situation has 
changed", the WTO director general said with irony.

Susan Schwab says progress could depend on French elections
Continuing to slam France as the main obstacle to the round's 
success, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said, for her part, 
that the outcome of the French elections in spring 2007 will be 
important for the future of the talks. "Perhaps we should wait for 
the result of the French elections", she told reporters on Wednesday. 
Saying that customs duties imposed by the EU on imports of 
agricultural produce are twice as high as those imposed by the United 
States and that European farm subsidies are three times higher than 
those Washington grants to its farmers, Ms Schwab spoke ironically on 
Wednesday of the "tears and wailing of the Europeans" and denied that 
the United States had been isolated in Geneva. Ms Schwab is to meet 
the Brazilian foreign minister and leader of the G-20 emergent 
countries, Celso Amorim, in Rio on Saturday.

European Parliament deplores suspension of talks
Speaking on behalf of the European Parliament, on Wednesday, the 
Chair of the Committee on International Trade, Spanish Socialist 
Enrique Baron, regretted the fact that Doha negotiations had been 
suspended indefinitely. "The EP and its International Trade Committee 
are not resigned to the prospect of a definitive collapse in the 
talks", he said in a press release, calling for the functioning of 
the talks to be rethought and for new solutions to the WTO system, 
which has shown its limits. In order to overcome national selfishness 
and increase the legitimacy of the WTO, it is appropriate to give the 
multilateral organisation a parliamentary dimension by setting up a 
dialogue body composed of representatives of the member nation 
parliaments, Mr Baron said, assuring that the EP will defend a 
rebalancing of the roles of the EP and Council in coming months in 
order to better control the work of the Commission.

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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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