Folha de Sao Paulo | By CLOVIS ROSSI | July 10, 2003
Lisbon -- The outcome of trade negotiations in progress at the World Trade Organization (WTO) went from "completely blocked" to "an unknown," in the opinion of the Brazilian Foreign Relations [Trade] Minister Celso Amorim after a trip to Geneva, where the WTO headquarters are located.
"Unknown is better than a total blockade, but it's not enough", added Amorim.
Brazil considers the WTO the main forum for trade negotiations among the three the country is involved in (the other two are the MercoSur-European Union negotiations and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)).
What changed "everything blocked" to an unknown was the announcement of modifications in the European agricultural policy. It was precisely the chapter on agriculture that had completely frozen the negotiations in the WTO * and, by extension, complicated the other two [negotiations].
The unknown, however, continues to be a given. "The announced reform permits, but does not oblige [the EU] to do certain things and there is no way of knowing for certain what the European Commission is going to want or be able to do," said Amorim.
Precisely because of this, the minister wants to schedule bilateral meetings with MercoSur and the European Union and between MercoSur and the United States, to try to influence the game. "We cannot just keep waiting for the U.S.A. and the EU to make their decisions on how the negotiations are and talking to them afterwards."
Measures recommended by past experience: An understanding between the U.S. and Europe on the issue of agriculture, the so-called "Blair House Agreement," unblocked the Uruguay Round, the previous cycle of trade liberalization that ended in 1994. But it unblocked on European and American terms, contrary to the countries which export agricultural products. A second element contributed to the strengthening of what the minister calls the "unknown": the E.U. decided to change the criteria for subsidies to its producers. Instead of giving them subsidies according to output, it will be by property size.
In theory, the measures will stimulate the European farmers to produce less. Therefore, there will be less to export, at subsidy prices, to third markets, opening space to Brazilian and MercoSur production.
But no one knows if, in practice, this will in fact happen. The bilateral meetings with the Europeans and the Americans, if all goes according to Itamaraty's wishes, will happen at some point between now until the WTO mini-ministerial meeting, scheduled for the end of the month in Montreal (Canada).
The mini-ministerial involves a small number of countries (25 in Montreal although there are 145 WTO members), as a way to try to unblock the negotiations.
"If it unblocks the agricultural area, it permits the opportunity to try to deal more seriously with other issues in Montreal," evaluated the Brazilian minister.
But in the talk that Amorim had yesterday, in Geneva with Thai-born Supachai Panitchpakdi, the General-Director of the WTO, he was not informed of great advances.
This opinion coincides with that of Stuart Harbinson (Hong Kong), president of the WTO's group on agriculture negotiations.
In a report distributed to the Trade Negotiations Committee, which coordinates all the negotiations of the different issues, Harbinson says that an agreement even about modalities "remained out of reach".
"Modalities" is, in practice, a pre-negotiation, in which the member countries define how they will conduct the actual negotiations.
Harbinson asked for a "collective orientation [sense of direction]" to enable him to prepare a new text that serves as a basis for negotiations.
Adding it all up, the evaluation of the Brazilian diplomat according to what Folha has heard, is that Cancun, the Mexican city that will host the next Ministerial Conference in September, will not be Seattle or Doha.
In other words, not the thunderous failure of 1999, which impeded the launching in that North American city of what was called the "Millenium Round," nor the success that was the following Ministerial, in the capital of Qatar, in 2001.
That one [the Doha Ministerial] actually did launch what then became known as the Doha Development Round, with a deadline set for 2005.
According to the evaluation [Folha] heard from Itamaraty, Cancun will produce only what is necessary in order for the negotiations to proceed.
For the Brazilian government, which has Doha's success in their plan A, does a lukewarm result will mean planning a new plan B? No, answers Amorim. He adds, "It only reinforces the necessity for plan A to work."Folha de Sao Paulo:
