GENEVA--New multilateral talks on the further liberalization of farm trade are headed for an inauspicious start after members of the World Trade Organization failed once again March 20 to agree on the selection of an official to head the negotiations.
The agriculture negotiations are set to begin March 23 when WTO members gather for the first formal negotiating session. Mandated talks on both agriculture and services trade are proceeding as scheduled despite the failure of members to agree on the launch of a new trade round at their ministerial meeting in Seattle late last year.
Members agreed at a General Council meeting on Feb. 7 that the agriculture talks would be conducted through the WTO's existing agriculture committee and that the committee's chairman would manage the special negotiating sessions while the vice-chair would deal with issues related to the committee's ongoing work program.
The problem has been the selection of the committee's new chair and vice-chair. Members of the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations have been championing the nomination of Celso Amorim, Brazil's ambassador to the WTO, as committee chair. The nomination has the support of the majority of WTO members as well as the United States.
Brazil is a key member of the Cairns group, which also includes Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay.
The European Union has countered with its own candidate, Michael Dowling, a former permanent secretary with the Irish agriculture ministry.
EU-Cairns Group Deadlock
Trade officials say that the EU has essentially vetoed the appointment of Amorim or any other official from a Cairns Group country while the Cairns Group is refusing to support any candidate from an EU member state, particularly Ireland, which is heavily dependent on agricultural subsidies.
The officials add that the name of Morocco's WTO ambassador Nacer Benjelloun-Touimi has been suggested as a compromise candidate but that this is also being resisted by Cairns Group members on the grounds that he is too close to the Europeans.
The March 23 negotiating session is expected to proceed even if members fail to fill the chair vacancies by then. But the impasse does not bode well for the future of the farm talks, where differences between the Cairns Group and countries with protective agriculture markets such as the EU and Japan are expected to be the biggest stumbling blocks.
The failure of the two camps to reconcile their differences over the framework of the future talks was one of the factors contributing to the collapse of the Seattle ministerial. The Cairns Group pushed for language calling for the elimination of export subsidies and substantial reduction of domestic farm supports while the EU and Japan insisted the negotiations must take account of the "multifunctional" role played by state-supported agriculture in achieving social objectives such as employment and rural development.
By Daniel Pruzin
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