Associated Press | By NAOMI KOPPEL | November 18, 2003
Members of the World Trade Organization conceded Tuesday that they may fail to put their stalled trade negotiations back on track when they meet next month.
"If we come to the conclusion that we aren't ready on Dec. 15, we won't convene a meeting of senior officials," European Union Ambassador Carlo Trojan told reporters.
The WTO's current "round" of trade liberalization negotiations has been on hold since the collapse of the September meeting of trade ministers from the 146 WTO members in Cancun, Mexico.
When they accepted that they would not be able to make progress at that meeting, ministers designated Dec. 15 as the date by which talks should be put back on track.
Uruguayan Ambassador Carlos Perez del Castillo, who chairs the WTO's ruling General Council, has been holding consultations with diplomats to try to find common ground. He told a meeting of all members Tuesday that he had seen some progress but countries were far from agreement.
"It has been often suggested in the consultations that our meeting in December should not be seen as a deadline, but rather as a stepping stone to more substantive and wide-ranging work after that," he said.
After a series of missed deadlines, most negotiators now accept that they will fail to complete the round as planned by the end of next year.
At Cancun, countries were deeply split on the issue of trade in agricultural goods, with a battle between big farm subsidizers like the European Union and those that use few subsidies like Australia. The meeting also saw the rise of a powerful bloc of developing countries, led by Brazil and India, who are demanding major changes to agricultural trade.
Despite the differences over agriculture, though, the issue that scuttled the Cancun meeting was whether to add four new areas of negotiation to the round to address issues of trade rules.
While countries like the EU, Japan and South Korea wanted to start talks on all four of the issues - simplifying customs procedures, improving transparency in government tendering, competition rules and investment - others, led by India and many of the poorest nations, refused to consider any of them.
Despite concessions by some countries during the Cancun meeting, consensus proved impossible. And, Perez del Castillo warned, the issue still is a major problem.
There are "worrisome indications that some members have not moved at all on these issues from their pre-Cancun positions, and it is not clear what they are willing to do to contribute to the process moving forward," he told the meeting.
Countries also are split on how to open up markets for goods other than agricultural produce, and on the issue of cotton subsidies. Poor nations in West Africa claim the huge subsidies paid to cotton farmers in the United States, China and the European Union are making it impossible for their producers to sell their cotton at a fair price.
Trojan said that if the differences cannot be bridged before next month's meeting, it would be better to admit that in advance and set lower targets.
"By the beginning of December we will know if we can achieve by Dec. 15 what we wanted to achieve from Cancun," he said.
"If we come to the conclusion that we need more work, it is better to do it in a solid way and ensure that we (can) negotiate substantively in 2004, rather than do it in a way that risks all the progress," he said.Associated Press:
