WTO Members voice "frustration" over lack of transparency in talks
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Lamy in article below: This is why discussion of the Doha Round is
specifically foreseen in themes for the Working Sessions. (One of the two
sub-themes of the working sessions is review of WTO activities including
the Doha Work Programme). "And in this specific context I think that the
7th Ministerial Conference represents an important platform for ministers
to send a strong signal of commitment to concluding the Doha Development
Round," the Director-General concluded.
-------------------------
TWN Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues
3 November 2009
Third World Network
WTO Members voice "frustration" over lack of transparency in talks
Published in SUNS #6798 dated 22 October 2009
Geneva, 21 Oct (Kanaga Raja) -- The WTO's General Council at its meeting
Tuesday heard complaints and voices of frustration from a number of Members
over the lack of transparency in the current negotiating process in Geneva
involving bilateral and small-group meetings.
The complaints and frustration surfaced in the statements of several
Members following the first agenda item of the Council concerning a report
by Director-General Pascal Lamy, in his capacity as Chair of the Trade
Negotiations Committee (TNC).
According to trade officials, the Members that expressed a great deal of
frustration over the lack of transparency in the process included Colombia,
Hong Kong-China, Norway, Chinese Taipei, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Korea,
Uruguay, Turkey, Bangladesh, Egypt, Costa Rica and Switzerland.
(According to trade officials, the EU held a meeting this week outside the
WTO of senior officials of some 14 countries that included the US, India,
China, Brazil, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, Indonesia, Japan, and
Egypt.)
According to a developing-country trade diplomat, countries including
Colombia, Hong Kong-China, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Turkey and Norway expressed
frustration over the issue of lack of transparency in the Geneva
negotiating process.
Members also expressed frustration over the lack of real engagement in the
negotiations, the trade diplomat added.
The common denominator in the interventions in the General Council was that
technical progress is not enough and that there was need for accelerating
and increasing engagement, said the trade diplomat, adding that the
political commitments that had been made are not being translated on the
ground in Geneva.
In other discussions, the General Council considered some of the
preparatory work for the forthcoming seventh Ministerial Conference and the
organisation of its work. Also before the Council were two other proposals,
one for the Ministerial Conference and another for the General Council.
The proposal for the Ministerial Conference by India and several other
leading delegations calls for an appropriate deliberative process by the
General Council to review the WTO's functioning, efficiency and
transparency, and consider possible improvements, in order to maintain the
effective functioning of the rules- based WTO multilateral trading system.
A second proposal by Argentina and Ecuador is on the financial and economic
crisis, and the various state aids and subsidies being given. The proposal
calls for a process of consultation by the President of the General Council
to give Members an opportunity to discuss the methodology to be applied by
the Secretariat in analytical work and periodic reports to the membership.
According to trade officials, in the discussions over the report of the TNC
Chair, Egypt, on behalf of the African Group, shared the frustration
expressed by Norway, Pakistan, Turkey and others. There is need to follow
the mandate of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration and the agriculture
and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) modalities of December. Bilateral
meetings are useful but they are no substitute for the multilateral
process. For the African Group, a development outcome remains the raison
d'etre of the Doha Round, Egypt said.
In his report to the Council as TNC Chair, Lamy said that "it will be
difficult to get to 2010 without a serious acceleration of the pace. We
need to see real negotiations emerge, not only informal consultations and
discussions, but real exchanges among members.
"We need to do so in a manner which is inclusive and leaves no interest
behind. We need to ensure greater transparency over bilateral discussions
so that every member feels it is part of an overall process," he added.
Lamy told Members that in addition to Chairs' consultations and small group
meetings taking place this week, he will also hold consultations on the key
issues of agriculture, NAMA and services together with the respective
Chairs, in variable geometry, with a view to providing members with avenues
for engagement.
He also informed Members that an informal TNC meeting will be held on
Friday for the purposes of transparency and inclusiveness.
"When this week is over, I hope we will have a better sense of the work
ahead of us in November, so that the next week of negotiations benefiting
from the presence of senior officials in Geneva in November can register a
qualitative change in the negotiating dynamics and progress on substance."
Lamy also updated Members on his consultations on the issues of GI
(geographical indications) extension and the relationship between the TRIPS
Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Referring to his consultations on 8 October with a group of delegations, he
said that on TRIPS-CBD, the discussion centred around the legal character
of misappropriation and the measures, other than the disclosure
requirement, to address misappropriation and benefit sharing. On GI
extension, the discussion centred on the differences between protection
under Article 22 and Article 23 as well as on the effects on higher
protection to additional products.
The discussion was highly technical and detailed, he said, adding however
that differences still remain on the substance.
Looking ahead to the next 41 days before the opening session of the WTO's
7th Ministerial Conference, Lamy pointed out that this Ministerial
Conference will be a different sort of gathering of ministers compared to
large-scale and week-long events that have taken place since 1998. "For a
start, this ministerial meeting, as we established a long time ago, is on a
separate track from the on-going Doha Round negotiations."
"In other words, this meeting is not a DDA (Doha Development Agenda)
negotiating meeting. It is our hope that ministers will come to Geneva to
address and interact on a few key themes, regarding the WTO and the
multilateral trading system, the 'big picture' so to say," said Lamy.
However, and there seems to be some confusion on this point, this does not
mean that ministers' statements or indeed their discussions cannot address
the issue of the Doha Round or indeed specific negotiations, Lamy stressed.
On the contrary, he added, it would seem rather odd if the elephant in the
room remained nameless. This is why discussion of the Doha Round is
specifically foreseen in themes for the Working Sessions.
"And in this specific context I think that the 7th Ministerial Conference
represents an important platform for ministers to send a strong signal of
commitment to concluding the Doha Development Round," the Director-General
concluded.
Under another agenda item, the Council discussed a communication from
Argentina and Ecuador on the financial and economic crisis and the role of
the WTO (WT/GC/W/609), which contained a draft decision for action by the
Council.
According to the communication, the extent and impact of the current global
financial and economic crisis have a negative effect on the growth of
international trade, placing the multilateral system in an unprecedented
situation.
Noting that the Director-General had submitted three reports to the Trade
Policy Review Body (TPRB) on the financial and economic crisis and
trade-related developments, the communication said that those reports
identified measures such as State aids and subsidies (through fiscal
stimulus as well as industry and financial support programmes) given to
manufacturing industries (e. g. loans, grants, tax reliefs and "buy local")
and financial institutions (e. g. takeovers, recapitalization, and
government guarantees, rescue packages and bailout), adopted by some
Members as a response to the crisis.
According to the communication, the Director-General has indicated that as
these measures: "... are often attached informally, and are of a political
rather than contractual nature, it is very hard to know of their existence
and how they are being implemented". Fiscal stimulus and financial support
programmes "... have the potential to impact seriously and negatively on
foreign producers who specialize in activities that are the target of
government support in other countries ... [and] they have the potential to
create deep and long-lasting distortions to global markets ...".
In the third report, he added: "The programmes will benefit international
trade to the extent that they succeed in achieving their systemic
objectives (...) however, such large injections of public money into the
economy, and of government influence over how it is to be spent, do have
the potential also to distort markets and competition".
The data contained in the reports as well as any new information and data
on those measures need to be evaluated through a comprehensive, specific,
systematized and periodic analysis performed by the WTO Secretariat.
The communication said that the draft decision envisages a process of
consultations conducted by the President of the General Council in order to
give Members an opportunity to discuss the methodology to be applied by the
Secretariat in that analytical work.
The Draft Decision proposed by the communication states the General Council
decides as follows:
"1. The President of the General Council with the assistance of the
Director-General and the WTO Secretariat shall undertake extensive and
transparent consultations with Members including, when appropriate,
relevant international governmental bodies on the methodology for the
analysis of the fiscal stimulus and financial support programmes adopted as
a response to the crisis, and identified in the Director-General reports to
the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB) on the financial and economic crisis
and trade-related developments.
2. During the consultations the President of the General Council shall take
into account that the analysis referred above should:
* cover all goods and services;
* include information and statistical estimations of the trade impact of
these measures;
* distinguish between horizontal stimulus measures and those intended for a
particular sector, and provide details on the individual measures according
to their potential trade-restricting or distorting impact;
* facilitate the monitoring by Members on a regular basis.
3. The President of the General Council will report its findings and
conclusions to the first session of the General Council in 2010."
According to trade officials, there was wide support for the
Argentina-Ecuador proposal. The EU and the US however said that a separate
mechanism was not required for this and that these discussions could be
taken up by existing WTO bodies.
Speaking to SUNS, Argentina's senior negotiator Nestor Stancanelli said
that the reaction to the communication was positive. Practically all the
delegations that intervened in the meeting supported the proposal. The EU
and the US suggested that the Trade Policy Review Mechanism may suffice for
this.
He said that Argentina believed that there is need for substantially deeper
analysis of all the stimulus packages and measures adopted in order to face
the crisis. There is no mechanism in the WTO to deal with this. It is
important to have a systemic analysis of all these packages, he added.
There is agreement to keep this issue on the agenda of the General Council,
he said.
Under a separate agenda item, Gabon spoke on behalf of the informal group
of developing countries concerning the issue of accession of developing
countries.
According to trade officials, this is an effort to establish a mechanism
for communication by accession candidates on how their accession is
progressing. Trade officials said that this was embraced by a wide section
of the membership. Those that were not supportive of the proposal were the
US, the EU and Japan. They were of the view amongst others that each
accession is on the basis of its own merits and that the process is already
transparent in the working groups.
Supporting the proposal, the developing countries said that very often they
face political barriers to entry and face something that goes beyond the
standard rules that apply to developing countries in the WTO.
Another agenda item in the day-long Council meeting addressed the upcoming
seventh session of the WTO Ministerial Conference to be held in Geneva from
30 November to 2 December.
According to trade officials, in his statement, the General Council Chair
Mario Matus of Chile proposed that the Ministerial Conference be chaired by
the Minister of the Member country currently providing the General Council
Chair (in this case, the trade minister of Chile).
The Chair cited several principles with regards to the organization of the
Conference, namely, that the whole approach is based on "FIT" (full
participation, inclusiveness and transparency); it is a regular Conference
that is not structured around the Doha Round negotiation process; it is
important not to overload the Conference agenda; preparatory work for this
Conference should not divert energy and attention away from the Doha
Development Agenda; any action or decision by Ministers that is proposed by
Members should be developed in line with the normal consensus principle;
and any issue for action or decision should be agreed well in advance of
the Conference.
On the structure of the Ministerial Conference, the General Council Chair
mentioned the holding of plenary sessions and two working sessions that
will run concurrently. The two sub-themes of the working sessions are
review of WTO activities including the Doha Work Programme, and the WTO's
contribution to recovery, growth and development.
The General Council Chair also drew attention to the slate of officers of
the Conference comprising the Chair, and three Vice-Chairs. The Chair held
consultations on this, and the Members then agreed that the Chair of the
Ministerial Conference would be Mr Andres Velasco, the trade minister of
Chile. The Vice-Chairs are Ms Doris Leuthard of Switzerland, Ms Mari
Pangestu of Indonesia and Mr Rachid Mohamed Rachid of Egypt.
As to the attendance of observers at the Conference, the General Council
Chair proposed that all those that were observers at the Hong Kong
Ministerial Conference in 2005 be invited to attend this time. The Members
also agreed to this.
The Chair further said that the outcome of the Ministerial Conference will
be a Chair's Summary which will be factual and balanced.
According to trade officials, the Chair said that there is a wide range of
convergence on these issues and that there is need to finalize this very
quickly.
He also highlighted two issues for possible action, the first involving
complaints of non-violation regarding the TRIPS Agreement and the second, a
moratorium on duties on e-commerce transactions (these issues had been
rolled over at subsequent Ministerial Conferences dating back to the Geneva
Ministerial Conference in 1998).
According to the Chair, there is a consensus on placing these issues before
the Ministerial Conference.
An issue that has been suggested for the agenda of the Conference is a
proposal by
18 Members on strengthening the WTO, which has been put forward by India.
The 18 countries are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong-China,
European Communities, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico,
Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States, and Uruguay.
The proposal (WT/MIN(09)/W/1) contains text for inclusion in the outcome
document of the seventh Ministerial Conference.
On the issue of systemic improvements to the WTO, the communication
proposes the following text for inclusion in the Chair's summary to be
issued at the conclusion of the 7th Ministerial Conference:
"The rapid change in the global economic environment requires the WTO to be
agile and responsive in order to preserve its central role in the global
trading system. With a view to maintaining the effective functioning of the
rules based multilateral trading system, the WTO needs to periodically
engage in a process of review of its functioning, efficiency and
transparency and consider systemic improvements, as appropriate. Ministers
have invited the General Council therefore, to establish an appropriate
deliberative process to review the organization's functioning, efficiency
and transparency and consider possible improvements, while bearing in mind
the high priority we attach to the successful conclusion of the DDA
negotiations. We look forward to reviewing the progress in this regard in
our next meeting."
In a statement at the General Council, India said that it had held wide
consultations with Members on the proposal and it is clear that the large
majority of Members support the proposal.
"We consider the WTO to be an efficient multilateral organization which
provides useful services to its Members and to the global trading
community. However, trading conditions in the world continue to change
rapidly. MFN trade, for instance, is becoming an exception rather than the
rule," said India.
"We believe that in order to remain relevant to the global trading system,
the WTO's procedures must continue to evolve. We can no longer cite our
continuing preoccupation with the Doha Round as an excuse for ignoring the
many challenges that threaten to erode the WTO's relevance."
The limited objective of this proposal is to establish a process to
discuss, and hopefully, to address these challenges, said India.
"Thoughtful deliberation and dialogue are the lifeblood of an organization
like the WTO. Our failure to engage in such a process of renewal can cost
us dearly in the future. I, therefore, hope that we can soon start
discussing these issues in an orderly and constructive manner," said India.
Speaking to journalists, Ambassador Ujal Singh Bhatia of India said that
everybody agrees that it is a good idea but some feel that there is need
for more consultations. His personal view is that "these ideas are now
fully embedded in the WTO."
At the moment however, he could not predict whether they will come up in
the WTO Ministerial, or the General Council, or in other committees. "At
least now the debate has started."
He believed that the General Council Chair will be holding consultations on
this issue. +
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