| Author (Person) | Davies, Eric | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Publisher | ProQuest Information and Learning | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series Title | In Focus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series Details | 17.5.04 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Publication Date | 17/05/2004 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content Type | News, Overview, Topic Guide | In Focus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Doha Development Agenda was launched at the World Trade Organization's fourth Ministerial Conference, held in the Qatari capital in November 2001. In the wake of the failed Third Ministerial Conference, which took place in Seattle in 1999, representatives of more than 140 countries met in Doha to agree an agenda for a new round of trade talks. Major issues discussed included the environment, agriculture, trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), anti-dumping, and the implementation of earlier agreements. The resulting Doha Development Agenda covered 21 topics, all but two of which were scheduled for completion by January 2005. Progress on the Agenda (also referred to as the Doha Work Programme) was to be reviewed at the Fifth Ministerial Meeting, held in the Mexican city Cancun in September 2003. However, despite the fact that the Cancun meeting was intended simply as a stock-taking exercise, reviewing progress towards the Doha goals, it ended in considerable acrimony with no agreement on a way forward. Following the breakdown at Cancun, there was a hiatus in discussions, during which it was suggested by some observers that the whole process might fail. However, both the United States and the European Union have since re-engaged in discussions, both bilaterally and with other participants. Background The Doha Development Agenda was intended - at least officially - to promote the interests of poorer countries, by reducing trade barriers and giving them better access to world markets. However, as The Economist put it: 'For all the fine promises made at Doha, rich countries could see no farther than the interests of their own farmers. America's unwillingness to curb its cotton subsidies - which have an especially severe effect on poor-country producers - is unforgivable. So too is Japan's unyielding defence of its own swaddled rice farmers. And for all its ballyhooed efforts at reform, the European Union remains the most egregious farm subsidiser of all. Europe deserves added blame for trying to push poor countries into negotiating new rules on investment, competition, government procurement and trade facilitation, when most of them clearly did not want to' (see: The World Bank estimated that 'a successful Doha round could raise global income by more than $500 billion a year by 2015. Over 60% of that gain would go to poor countries, helping to pull 144m people out of poverty. While most of the poor countries' gains would come from freer trade among themselves, the reduction of rich-country farm subsidies and more open markets in the north would also help' (see The Economist: The failure of Cancun was seen by the Financial Times as being due in part to the 'confrontational tactics redolent of the cold war era', which 'may have worked when progress hinged on deals between the US and Europe ... [but] ...are ill-suited to an organisation with 148 members, many of them with limited resources and negotiating experience.' The FT suggested that 'More will be achieved by taking them by the hand than by going head to head' (see: In a Communication issued in November 2003, the European Commission identified a number of areas where it thought the EU could be more flexible, and also some where it considered that movement was necessary on the part of others (see: EU- WTO: European Commission proposes to put Doha Round of trade talks back on track). In particular, the Communication proposed that the EU should not try to force the so-called 'Singapore issues', which it had tried to get added to the Doha Agenda, and which had caused considerable unease amongst other participants. The Communication suggested that the four issues - concerning competition, investment, conditions of cross-border trade and transparency in public procurement - be dealt with on a 'plurilateral', with individual countries free to decide whether to participate in negotiations on them (see European Voice: Agriculture was one of the main issues on the Doha Agenda, and in December Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler identified five 'tests' which he said needed to be passed if any future negotiations were to be successful. He characterised these as: 'developing countries have to get a better deal', “give and take” is the name of the game', 'reforms have to be recognised, not penalised', 'substance has to prevail over slogans', 'the rich can't go it alone' (see: WTO and agriculture: Fischler's five tests to kick-start stalled talks). At the same time, the Financial Times noted not only that agriculture was 'the make-or-break issue of the trade round', but that 'other big WTO members have so far remained entirely passive, with many waiting for the EU or the US to make the first move' (see: However, at a meeting of the G20 in December Brazil's Foreign Minister said that the EU's offer 'to phase out export subsidies - provided other countries did the same - was insufficient' (see Financial Times: Further problems loomed as members of the WTO considered whether to lodge complaints against the EU and US over their agricultural subsidies. The failure of Cancun meant that what the Financial Times called a 'peace clause' intended to protect such subsidies had expired, and that subsidies to support the production of cotton, rice, dairy products and sugar might be targeted ((see: January 2004 saw an initiative from the United States in the form of a letter from Robert Zoellick, which offered ideas to break the deadlock resulting from Cancun. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy responded positively to the US initiative, saying that it showed 'that 2004 will not be a lost year. We hope that this is now going to pave the way for more talks in the WTO so that we can complete the talks by the agreed date, if this is possible, of the end of 2004. We are ready to go and negotiate' (see Financial Times: In
Despite that optimism, a meeting in Geneva in February produced no breakthrough (see Financial Times: April saw the EU move to win over Latin American countries, in an initiative seen as an attempt to 'divide and rule', by splitting opposition to its Doha positions. Preferential treatment for Mercosur members (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) was decried as 'noxious' in the FT, and seen as potentially 'poison[ing] prospects for success in the Doha round ... and damag[ing] the interests of many other countries, including some of the world's poorest' (see: Nearly 30 of the Doha Round participants were scheduled to meet during the May OECD meeting in Paris, with the aim of trying to find some way forward which might allow an agreement to be reached on the Doha Agenda by July 2004 - seen as the last date before talks are effectively postponed in the run-up to the US Presidential election in November. Prior to the Paris meeting, Pascal Lamy circulated WTO members with details of the EU's latest position. He identified three areas where the Union could be more flexible: export subsidies, Singapore issues, concessions for the poorest and weakest WTO members (see: WTO-DDA: EU ready to go the extra mile in three key areas of the talks). However, Commissioner Lamy also made it clear that the EU 'cannot do it alone. All WTO Members developed and developing alike have to translate general expressions of political commitment into concrete movement on the substance if we want to get an agreement on modalities by July.' Further information within European Sources Online European Sources Online: In Focus
European Sources Online: Topic Guides
European Sources Online: The Economist
European Sources Online: European Voice
European Sources Online: Financial Times
Further information can be seen in these external links: EU Institutions European Commission DG Press and Communication DG Trade
DG Agriculture
Governments and international organisations Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
U.S. Department of State
World Trade Organization
Eric Davies Background and reporting on the week's main stories in the European Union and the wider Europe. |
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