Green Delegates to WTO Ministerial Conference Condemn "One-Sided Negotiating Process"
The Green/EFA group in the European Parliament criticised the draft Declaration, sent to all trade Ministers by the Chair of the General Council, Stuart Harbinson, as "breaking all the normal procedural rules". Less than 10 days before the opening of the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha (Qatar), Harbinson announced that on his own personal responsibility, and with the support of WTO Director-General Mike Moore, he was transmitting his text without the approval of the General Council. Many developing and least-developed countries object strongly to the inclusion in the text of negotiations on the so-called 'new issues' of trade and investment, competition, government procurement and trade facilitation-all seen as favouring more free-trade access for companies from developed countries.
Some observers believe that by giving no indication of the opposing viewpoints, he has clearly exceeded his authority and created the risk of a repeat of the last Ministerial in Seattle in 1999 by bringing the process to a grinding halt.
"The WTO bureaucrats, encouraged by the EU and the US, have decided to take the law into their own hands" said Green MEP Caroline Lucas, a member of the European Parliament's Qatar Delegation. "They are fond of lecturing us about how the rules-based, consensual WTO system serves all its members, but when those members disagree openly with the Chair and D-G, the proper procedures suddenly get by-passed. On the other hand where the WTO could really make a difference to people's lives, such as changing the TRIPs patent rules to give greater access to essential medicines such as treatment for HIV/AIDS, we find that the interests of the big pharmaceutical companies are given much more weight." She added "If the WTO wants to retrieve even a semblance of credibility, then trade ministers from India, Egypt, the Africa Group, the LDCs and elsewhere must support the statements made in Geneva by their ambassadors reject this one-sided negotiating process and force the EU/US to address the real development agenda.
Swedish Green MEP Per Gahrton, also a Delegation member, said "There is a high degree of desperation about this process. The EU and the US appear to have calculated that the only way they will get their cherished negotiations on new investment, competition and public procurement rules underway is to ignore the protests of most of the developing world that they don't want to negotiate on these issues and rely on bullying and arm-twisting in Doha, under threats that the world trade system will otherwise break down. In reality it is the actions of developed countries which place the WTO in jeopardy by insisting on placing these new issues on the agenda and at the same time refusing to remove discriminatory anti-dumping measures or to abandon their highly protectionist agricultural export subsidy regimes.":
