Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 8 • Number 8 • 3rd March 2004
Doha Round: Midyear Meeting To Establish Negotiating Frameworks?
WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and EC Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy have all recently commented on the desirability of establishing negotiating frameworks by midyear at the latest for bringing the Doha round to a conclusion. Following public speeches at different venues around the world, the political pressure to get on with negotiations will soon be put to the test in Geneva, where various negotiating groups are scheduled for March and April.
Frameworks midyear or May?
Speaking to journalists on 27 February in Washington, DC, Director-General Supachai indicated his support for holding a high-level General Council meeting at the WTO in July — possibly attended by ministers, without being an official ministerial meeting — where Members could agree on a framework for negotiations of a kind they had hoped to adopt at the failed Ministerial Conference in Cancun in September 2003. Prior to the meeting, officials in Geneva should work under the guidance of their trade ministers. By midyear — which most observers assume to mean before the WTO’s August recess — it should also be clear whether or not the negotiations could be finished in time to meet the January 2005 deadline, or whether the deadline would need to be extended, according to Supachai. Supachai also supported the idea of getting trade ministers together at the sidelines of the annual Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meetings in April to take stock of progress in negotiations.
In a speech to the European American Business Council in Washington, DC on 26 February, EC Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy went further that Supachai, suggesting negotiators "should aim at the WTO General Council in May as the latest point at which we aim to secure ‘Cancun-like’ outcomes on modalities". He stressed the need to translate recently demonstrated political will to move the Doha round forward into concrete work in Geneva, saying time is limited, with "a brief window of opportunity from now to the end of August," after which the US presidential elections and the changeover in the European Commission would come in the way of progress.
Supachai felt that holding the meeting in May might press Members too hard, as "[Y]ou cannot be too over-hasty. Some countries will need a maturing of the process".
Robert Zoellick, during a tour of capitals of a number of key WTO Members where he discussed the Doha round (see BRIDGES Weekly, 19 February 2004, http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/04-02-19/story1.htm), initially proposed holding a high-level meeting in Geneva in July.
Framework agreement to leave specific numbers out
If a framework agreement were to be reached in July, the specific numbers –relating to cuts in tariffs in the various areas under negotiation, as well as subsidy cuts, notably in agriculture — would be left for Geneva-based negotiators to fill in during the second half of the year and until the end of the round. The critical area where movement is needed is agriculture (see BRIDGES Weekly, 26 February 2004).
Dates set for WTO negotiating groups
The formal work of the special sessions and negotiating groups at the WTO are now also set to continue. A General Council meeting on 11 February re-activated the groups (see BRIDGES Weekly, 12 February 2004), and the various chairs have scheduled talks for 16-17 March on trade rules, for 22-26 March on agriculture, for 29 March to 1 April on industrial market access and for 2 April on services. A meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), to be chaired by t Director-General Supachai, is tentatively scheduled for the week of 19 April.
For the full text of Commissioner Lamy’s speech, visit http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/lamy/speeches_articles/spla210_en.htm.
ICTSD reporting; "WTO chief sees new momentum to world trade talks," REUTERS, 27 February 2004; Agreement in WTO Talks This Year Unlikely, Supachai Says, but July ‘Framework’ Possible, WTO REPORTER, 24 February 2004; WTO Director-General Says OECD Ministerial Offers Useful Forum for Pushing Trade Talks; WTO REPORTER, 1 March 2004.