By Shefali Sharma, IATP June 27, 2001 Geneva, Switzerland
Yesterday, the US and EU announced an official consensus on their position on the New Round at a WTO Informal General Council meeting attended by senior officials from about fifty capitals and Geneva delegations. Referring to the US Statement, the EU delegate at the General Council Meeting stated, "I find a great degree of commonality between our respective analyses and our conclusions on substance and future objectives for our common work, as well as in terms of process.
In terms of substance for Doha, this common work for the EU includes
1) Market access in agriculture, industrial tariffs, services and procurement
2) Investment, competition, trade facilitation and possibly e-commerce
3) Clarifying, updating and improving certain Uruguay Round Agreements, but not re-opening language
The US"s agenda for Doha included:
1) "Ambitious negotiating mandates for the built-in agenda items of agriculture and services
2) Dispute settlement understanding with attention to transparency in proceedings
3) Trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, investment, and competition policy
4) Intersection of trade and environment issues (highlighting agricultural subsidies, and fisheries)
5) Immediate and continuing efforts on implementation issues of concern to many developing countries
6) Direction of work in the Committee on Trade and Environment, Committee on Trade and Development and other Councils and Committees
7) Institutional Reform and Coherence, citing both internal and external transparency of the WTO
The US stressed the need to work with the International Labor Organization and the Bretton Woods institutions in addressing the impact of globalization. In terms of capacity building for Developing Countries, USTR Deputy Peter Allgeier said:
We are prepared, in concert with the other WTO members and international institutions, to develop and implement effective means to meet these needs. In fact, Ambassador Zoellick already has met with President Wolfenson of the World Bank, President Iglesias of the Inter-American Development Bank, and recently confirmed U.S. AID Administrator Natsios to promote heightened efforts by these institutions to providing trade-related capacity building assistance to developing countries.
Statements from countries such as India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, the Africa Group, Kenya, the LDCs (representing 30 countries) and many other developing countries rejected any further expansion of an agenda for Doha that included investment, competition and government procurement and unanimously stressed the need to address the outstanding implementation issues of the Uruguay Round. Hong Kong warned, "For those who continue to argue for a "comprehensive round", I have to say honestly that an overly ambitious agenda is a recipe for no round at all. More importantly, many developing Members are not yet ready to take on some of the new commitments beyond their means.
The Africa Group insisted that the WTO agenda was already full and that the WTO needed progress on mandated negotiations and reviews, which are progressing slowly .
India said it most clearly, perhaps, when speaking about investment at the WTO, "As far as the proposal to negotiate rules on foreign direct investment is concerned, I would at the outset like to request everybody not to mix up two different issues; namely, willingness of a country to receive foreign direct investment and willingness of a country to accept binding multilateral rules on foreign direct investment in the WTO.
Moreover, the many country statements reflected that the study on the Singapore issues was still in process and that the proponents of investment, competition and government procurement have yet to convince developing countries why these issues should be added into negotiations at the WTO. Even countries such as Hong Kong, China and Brazil pushed for a "manageable agenda that excluded competition, while Brazil went further as to exclude investment as well as Trade and Environment issues.
Launching a Capital-based Initiative
The intention of the US and the EU to aggressively engage Ministers directly in their capitals in the next months to Qatar became increasingly clear in the last two days. Heads of Ministries in many developing countries do not understand as clearly as their trade officials in Geneva and in capitals the implications of WTO agreements, the failed promises of the Uruguay Round, and the often brutal power politics that takes place between member states at the WTO. By going directly to political ministers, the EU and the US hope to gain consensus on launching a new round. In his statement of June 25, the U.S Trade representative said, " With fewer than 20 weeks remaining until Doha, intensive and continuous involvement of capitals is critical to our success. And insisting that the international environment was more favorable to a "launch, US added, "Discussions in capitals reflect the realization that the WTO can"t afford to fail a second time at Doha.
Meanwhile, the EU gathered ACP countries" capital officials and delegations yesterday evening to convince them that the "rule of the jungle may prevail if these countries did not accept that new rules had to be negotiated.
Capital Based Initiative and the role of the Secretariat
At the end of May, Mike Moore called a meeting with a small group of delegations and said Geneva delegations appeared to be in a "deadlock, and that capital ministers needed to be more involved to reinvigorate the process. Moore called for a "capital based initiative . The assumption was that delegates who have been in Geneva since the Uruguay Round have become too entrenched in their negotiations and that fresh perspectives from capitals are needed to boost the process. According to a developing country delegation, some critical delegates are deliberately excluded from some of these meetings. The last two days' informal General Council meeting with senior officials from capitals was a reflection of such an initiative. There are rumors that future meetings are planned with developed countries, WTO secretariat and trade ministers themselves in various capitals.
Ministerial Draft
Member States hope to have draft elements of the Ministerial Text by end of July. Some delegations say that it will probably be a 12 pager and completed in about two weeks because it will be a "Punta Del Este type declaration that will not go into details of negotiating positions. The Developing Countries hope to include TRIPS in each of these sections.
Based on discussions with delegations, the Chairman"s Checklist has been divided into the shell of what the draft ministerial text could look like:
I. PREAMBLE
Ministers Views/statements on current issues: * State of the world economy and role of WTO * Need to combat protectionism * Development dimensions of WTO work * Global economic coherence * Relationship between regionalism and multilateralism * Accessions * Sustainable development * Other issues (including TRIPS)
II. IMPLEMENTATION Issues
III. ON GOING NEGOTIATIONS/REVIEWS * AG, Services, Reviews (TRIPS)
IV. NEW ISSUES * Singapore Issues (Investment, Competition, Government Procurement) * Other Issues such as e-commerce, industrial tariffs
V. Organization and Management of the Work Program and Technical Cooperation and Capacity Building
Shefali Sharma Trade Information Project (TIP) Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Geneva tel 41 22 789-0724 fax 41 22 789-0500 ssharma@iprolink.ch:
