Doha Round Principals Urge Each Other Onward

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

04 May 2006

Addressing the WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee in Geneva on Monday, Director-General Pascal Lamy, said that finding consensus in the Doha Round negotiations “remains doable, but only if a sense of urgency—which I feel is not always shared by all—starts appearing in each and every delegation”.

“We must now focus our efforts on working intensively, continuously and in an effective manner on a text-based negotiating process, which is solidly anchored in Geneva”, he added.

Last week, faced with gridlock in the negotiations, Pascal Lamy had stood down trade ministers who were due to meet this week, but insisted that a further deadline of the end of July for agreement on 'modalities' can be reached.

The April deadline had been seen as particularly important, because if the Doha Round, which began in 2001, is not completed by the end of this year it will be threatened by the expiry in mid-2007 of the fast-track trade negotiation mandate given by Congress to the President. Nobody thinks that the current fractious Congress will renew it.

The major nations are all blaming each other for the impasse in talks. Deputy US Trade Representative Karan Bhatia said: "There has been a real trouble in getting some of our other partners to make (similar) ambitious proposals." But EU Trade Representative Karl Falkenberg said the EU had tabled strong proposals. Both parties, but especially the EU, need to make better proposals if there is to be any hope of unblocking the Round.

Mr Lamy told Monday's meeting: It is also encouraging that political commitment to conclude the negotiations successfully has been reaffirmed in many quarters since last week. In short, we have had a disappointment which we have to acknowledge, but not a disaster, and we have already moved to convert disappointment into determination.'

Deputy US Trade Representative Peter Allgeier told the meeting that participants in the negotiations should not aim for a deal that achieves only a minor opening of markets, and called on participants not to delay tough decisions for months more. "No one should be lulled into thinking that the negotiations, and our jobs of selling the results to our respective domestic constituencies, will be easier if we all just lower our sights," Allgeier said. "It won’t be easier."

Meanwhile, in Brussels, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson reaffirmed the EU's good intentions towards the Doha process: "I want to make this clear: Europe has been instrumental in conceiving, launching, nurturing and sustaining this trade round since 2001, we have kept it on track more than once by making fresh payments into it, and we are not going to give up on it now. We want an ambitious but realistic result. We aim to conclude the negotiations this year, although this should not be at any price, and this means we will continue to press for agreement on key issues before this summer.

"In the case of agriculture, both the US and the EU have to go far enough in stripping out trade distorting farm subsidies and improving market access; and in the case of industrial goods, the bigger developing countries are not giving the rest of us the signal we need that they are serious about eliminating their high industrial tariffs and tariff peaks that currently shut out trade."

"If the circumstances allow – if key partners put something worthwhile on the table – the EU will be prepared to further enhance our current agricultural offer, as we have already communicated to other negotiators in London in March, and Rio again this month."

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