CongressDaily / Friday, March 25, 2000
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. delegation to the World Trade Organization's talks on agriculture that concluded today in Geneva attempted to put as positive a face as possible on the outcome. But others painted a more dismal one, particularly when compared to a similar February meeting on services. The delegates "made progress" setting up a schedule of meetings later this year and deciding that proposals for the agenda should be submitted by December, said a USTR spokesman.
But others focused on the WTO General Council's failure to appoint even a temporary chairman of the agriculture talks because the European Union rejected the leading candidate, Brazilian Ambassador to the WTO Celso Amorium. EU officials objected because Brazil belongs to the Cairns Group, an organization of countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand that are leading agricultural exporters but only marginally subsidize agriculture.
Tassos Haniotis, the EU agricultural counselor in Washington, today told CongressDaily that no candidate from a Cairns Group country would be acceptable to the European Union because Canadian Ambassador to the WTO Sergio Marchi is chairing the services talks. Craig Thorn, a U.S. trade negotiator for agriculture during the Uruguay Round, called the EU opposition "bullshit" because the Cairns Group countries do not coordinate their positions on services. But Haniotis said the Cairns Group countries want to tie services and agricultural talks together.
An official of the Washington embassy of one of the key Cairns Group countries confirmed that "[those countries] do want agriculture and services addressed in parallel because they don't want agriculture to lag too far behind." Thorn said it was "particularly distressing" that Amorium was rejected because he was considered such a strong candidate. Roger Farrell, chairman of the WTO Council on Trade in Goods, is supposed to continue as an ad hoc chairman and search for a new chairman. But a WTO official noted Farrell is supposed to leave his chairmanship April 5 and the post then will be handed over to an Uruguayan official. - by Jerry Hagstrom:
