Members Pledge To Seek Meaningful Way Out Of Doha
Lamy plans to consult ministers for different way of finding breakthrough in negotiations.
Compiled by staff
Published: Apr 29, 2011
During a meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee of the World Trade Organization on April 29, 2011, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy unveiled a plan to consult delegations in Geneva and ministers around the world in the search for a different way of achieving a breakthrough in the Doha Development Agenda negotiations. The WTO ambassadors endorsed the idea. Lamy plans to report back at the next meeting scheduled for May 31.
"We need to be lucid and realistic," Lamy said. "Failure of the WTO to deliver on its legislative function, failure of the WTO to update the rules governing international trade - last updated in 1995 - by adapting them to the evolving needs of its members, failure of the WTO to harness our growing economic interdependence in a cooperative manner, risks a slow, silent weakening of the multilateral trading system in the longer term. And with this, a loss of interest by political leaders in many quarters, an erosion of the rules-based multilateral trading system, a creeping return to the law of the jungle."
A number of ambassadors echoed Lamy's warning about the dangers as the membership faces the real prospect of the Doha Round failing, with the political "window of opportunity" that is seen to exist in 2011 rapidly closing. The costs would be the lost opportunity of boosting trade and development, increased protectionism and the erosion of faith in the trading system.
Several ambassadors spoke of the need for straight talking, in private if necessary, in the search for a breakthrough. Some have already been exploring compromise. The EU, reported on a compromise it has been discussing with some countries on NAMA sectorals. This is a proposed deal for free or almost-free trade among countries representing a large share of world trade, in specific sectors in the non-agricultural market access talks, whose span includes forestry and fisheries products as well as industrial goods. The EU referred specifically to chemicals, machinery and electronics.
Lamy included a report on his consultations on this blockage in the April 21 texts. In his statement to the committee he described this as a classic mercantilist issue: tariffs on industrial products, the bread and butter of WTO negotiations since their inception.
"It is therefore disappointing that no ground for compromise has been found on the issue of industrial tariffs yet," Lamy said. "But what is even more worrying for many of you is that this situation does not seem to result in too much discomfort in some quarters."
Permalink: Click here
|