archives: WTO InfoU.S., EU Outline Priorities for Discussion At Cancun Ministerial Meeting in September
International Trade Daily
Thursday, April 3, 2003
ISSN 1533-1350
NewsWTO
U.S., EU Outline Priorities for Discussion At Cancun Ministerial Meeting in September
GENEVA--The United States and the European Union outlined April 2 what they viewed as their agenda priorities for World Trade Organization members to focus on in the run-up to the organization's important ministerial conference in Cancun, Mexico next September. Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier told reporters that Washington wanted to secure an agreement on negotiating modalities for the Doha Round talks on agricultural trade and market access for non-agricultural goods in the five months leading up to Cancun. He also cited the need for a deal on modalities for the so-called "Singapore" issues of investment, competition policy, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement.
European Commission Director General for Trade M. Peter Carl outlined seven issues which trade ministers should focus their attention on in Cancun. Those include confirmation of modalities for agriculture, non-agricultural market access, and the Singapore issues, decisions on special and differential treatment and implementation concerns for developing countries, and WTO observer status for the secretariats of multilateral environmental agreements.
Decision on Geographic Indications
More controversially, Carl said the European Union expected a decision to be taken in Cancun on negotiations for expanding international protection of geographical indications to products other than wines and spirits. In addition, if members are unable to conclude a deal on possible changes to the WTO's rule book for settling trade disputes by their prescribed end of May deadline, ministers in Cancun should reach an agreement on as many outstanding issues as possible while setting a mandate for further negotiations. The two officials are in Geneva for a April 2-4 meeting of the WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), the body responsible for overseeing the Doha Round negotiations.
The meeting was organized by WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi to coincide with the March 31 deadline for finalizing an agreement on negotiating modalities for agriculture, a deadline which the membership failed to meet. A WTO spokesman said the purpose of the TNC meeting was to bring senior trade officials to Geneva in order to install a "sense of urgency" for bringing the Doha Round to a successful conclusion by the agreed deadline of Jan. 1, 2005, and to hear their views on how to move the process forward.
Other deadlines looming in the near term include end of May target dates for completing negotiating modalities on non-agricultural market access and reform of WTO dispute settlement rules.
Lower Expectations for Doha
In his opening remarks to the meeting, Supachai said WTO members cannot allow disappointment over the failure to agree on modalities for agriculture to weaken their determination to reach a positive outcome to the Doha negotiations. He also urged members not to build up expectations too high for the Cancun ministerial, which is increasingly being viewed as a make-or-break meeting for the Doha negotiations. "Let us not be dazzled by speculation about prospects for success or failure at Cancun," he said. "It is the success or failure of the round itself that should be our primary concern."
Allgeier admitted to concern about overloading the agenda in Cancun with unresolved matters such as modalities for agriculture, access to essential medicines, and special and differential treatment for developing countries, adding that it was important to "get as many things resolved before Cancun as soon as possible."
To this end, the United States wants to get "as far along as possible, if not completed," the modalities for agriculture and non-agricultural market access prior to the Cancun meeting, he said. Similarly, the modalities for the four Singapore issues need to be "basically worked out" over the spring and summer months so that ministers could affirm them in Cancun.
WTO members agreed at their November 2001 ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar to begin negotiations on the Singapore issues after the Cancun ministerial "on the basis of a decision to be taken, by explicit consensus...on modalities of negotiations" at that meeting. Members are still debating whether this mandate means, as the EU claims, that the decision to launch negotiations on these four issues has already been made or, as India and some developing countries argue, the decision is to be made in Cancun.
EU Still Pushing Deal on Ag Modalities
Carl said that the EU was committed to getting a deal on agriculture modalities by Cancun at the latest, but added that the timetable for the next step of the talks was likely to slip because of the missed March 31 deadline. Ministers agreed in Doha that WTO members would submit their country-specific offers for the agriculture talks by the Cancun meeting, but these offers are to be based on the framework of goals and timetables laid out in the agreed-to modalities. 'It is unlikely that it will be possible to do that (submit offers) in Cancun for the simple reason that you first have to have an agreement on modalities which gives you the architecture to put together the schedules," he said. "That task of preparing schedules is technically, economically and politically difficult and will take several months."
By Daniel Pruzin
Copyright © 2003 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.
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