Agriculture Negotiations at the WTO: ‘Framework Phase’ Update Report
This report, issued in June 2004, seeks to summarise recent developments from March through May 2004. The WTO special (negotiating) session of the Committee on Agriculture (CoA) resumed negotiations in March 2004, with New Zealand’s Timothy Groser as its new Chair. Members have agreed on a mid-summer deadline for the conclusion of a ‘framework’ for further negotiations, which would not contain numbers, but only set some benchmarks for the future negotiating ‘modalities’.
Altogether three mostly informal ‘agriculture weeks’ have taken place in Geneva, with a number of smaller ministerial-level meetings held in various capitals. In terms of the negotiations itself, the last weeks saw an important new initiative from the EC, as well the three new informal proposals by the G-20, G-33 and G-10, most of which showed a certain degree of new leadership, engagement and signs of flexibility. Concretely, there now appears to be an emerging consensus for agreeing on the complete elimination of export subsidies and similar export measures. Some progress has also been made on the domestic support pillar. Market access, however, remains a highly controversial issue, and there is strong disagreement amongst Members and groups of Members on the different proposals. Another important element is the new EC proposal that “particularly weak and vulnerable” countries should get the “round for free”, a suggestion that could not only split certain developing country groupings, but also delay the process, as it would be very difficult to implement. But, notably, also the more advanced (G-20) developing countries have now started to signal increasing understanding for the specific concerns of particularly weak developing countries.
Whether Members will be able to agree on a negotiating framework remains to be seen. It seems likely that any language eventually adopted will be rather unspecific, especially in the area of market access. Otherwise, it is highly unlikely that Members will resolve all the remaining contentious issues within a couple of weeks. This report is divided into five sections:
• Section 1 is an introduction to the recent agriculture talks in the larger context of the current WTO Doha Round negotiations.
• Section 2 summarises recent proposals and initiatives by key Members and Member groups.
• Section 3 offers a brief analysis of two fundamentally important dispute settlement proceedings, which are both directed against developed countries’ domestic support schemes.
• Section 4 gives an update of the cotton debate, which was initiated by four West and Central African countries prior to Cancun, in response to steadily falling world market prices for cotton.
• Section 5 contains a look-ahead section which attempts to make a brief forecast on relevant developments in the near future, e.g. considering what elements might be included in a future ‘framework’, and in which format.