The Guardian (London) | By Larry Elliott | August 26, 2003
Eleventh hour attempts were under way in Geneva last night to secure a deal on global trade liberalisation amid fresh criticism of the EU and the US for demanding deep cuts in industrial tariffs for poor countries while offering minor cuts themselves.
With the build-up to the World Trade Organisation's meeting in Cancun, Mexico, entering its final two weeks, negotiators in Geneva were last night studying a new draft text aimed at securing a compromise deal.
But with the scale of tariff cuts on industrial goods joining agriculture, services, investment and competition, and access to cheap medicine on the list of problem issues, sources said that there was still considerable ground to be covered to save the meeting from failure.
Oxfam said the joint EU, US and Canadian blueprint for non-farm products "would impose the deepest tariff cuts on some of the world's poorest countries, with industrialised countries offering only minor concessions. It is not a serious basis for negotiations - and it represents a threat to prospects for success at Cancun."
Under the joint proposals from the EU, the US and Canada, the biggest cuts in non-farm tariffs would apply to those developing countries where they tend to be high rather than the west, where they are low.
Oxfam pointed out that this approach was rejected by Brussels for the talks on agriculture, where the EU uses high levels of protection to support its agricultural sector. The development charity said that while the US and the EU would face tariff cuts of 24% and 28% respectively under the plan, countries such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Ghana would face tariff cuts in excess of 70%, rising to 80% or more for Bolivia and Kenya.
Unless poor countries had the right to liberalise industrial sectors more gradually, there would be big job losses, a marked deterioration in trade balances and the loss of crucial government revenue from customs duties. "Negotiations on non-agricultural market access will inevitably involve hard bargaining on all sides. But hard bargaining should not involve participating in a game where the rules are rigged against the weakest, most vulnerable players."
The extent of the gulf between rich and poor countries was highlighted with the release late on Sunday of a draft proposal from Carlos Perez del Castillo - Uruguay's ambassador and chairman of the WTO general council - showing disagreements in all the key areas of negotiations. Mr Perez del Castillo cautioned that his proposal "does not purport to be agreed in any part at this stage, and is without prejudice to any delegation's position on any issue".
One key omission from the draft was an agreement on affordable drugs to treat diseases like HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. The issue, which was supposed to have been settled last year, has been held up by US opposition, but officials are still hopeful of reaching a deal before Cancun.The Guardian (London):
