WTO members uncertain about September round of negotiations
3 Aug 2007
The meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee of the WTO, which oversees the Doha negotiations, concluded without a substantive decision on the status of the two modalities papers on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA). Contrary to the expectations of the diplomats, the status of the papers was left vague without any formal decision.
Earlier, most of the developing countries, individually as well as blocs had differentiated between the two papers at the meeting. They severely criticized the NAMA paper of Canadian Ambassador Don Stephenson for what they considered its bias against them. They however appeared to accept the agriculture paper of Ambassador Crawford Falconer of New Zealand as being able to play the role of facilitating further negotiations, even though there were reservations against the text as well.
The highlight of the TNC meeting was the presentation of a broad united front of many developing countries, shown in two joint statements, one by eight groups in a statement on the state of negotiations generally, and another on the NAMA negotiations by the G90 and NAMA 11. Many of the developed country members also found fault with parts of the two papers, but they supported both as being able to be used to further the negotiations in September.
The G20, G33, NAMA 11, Africa Group, LDC Group and ACP Group presented formal statements to the TNC, mainly reiterating the main points they had made earlier in the agriculture and NAMA meetings respectively. Their main concern had been the shift of focus in the NAMA text from that of ‘development’ to ‘market access’. Individual countries like Argentina, India, etc made statements to that effect. But every member seemed to be willing to participate in the September round of negotiations, agreeing to the fact that the agriculture draft was a good starting point for further work in September.
While, the US shared the view that there must be a balance across agriculture, NAMA, services and rules, a number of developing countries, including Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica, did not share the negative view of other developing countries on the NAMA draft. Mexico supported both drafts as points of departure, while Costa Rica said that the NAMA text was not ambitious enough.
However the General Council held on the next day ended as an uneventful affair dealing mainly with regular agenda items breaking off for the august break and getting ready for the September rounds. Most of the diplomats were apprehensive about the outcomes of the September talks given the kind of heated exchanges that have taken place previously on the modalities text on NAMA. With the TNC meeting also ending without a substantive conclusion from Lamy, where some delegates had expected him to proclaim the two drafts to be the basis for September's negotiations. But the battering that the NAMA draft received made it unwise for any such attempts to be made in that direction.
Lamy was also confident about a convergence in the September rounds with a little flexibility and the necessary will on part of the members and said that there was a high level of commitment to conclude the rounds.
Resource: TWN Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues
Released on: 3 August 2007
