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WTO: Doha agreement predicted by July
By Jerry Hagstrom
DTN Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (DTN)--Agriculture negotiators with the World Trade Organization decided in Geneva recently to meet monthly through July in hopes of reaching some kind of agreement to move the Doha Development Round ahead, but they also downgraded their expectations of what that agreement could entail, a WTO source told DTN.
The negotiators believe if an agreement is not reached by the end of July, no agreement will be reached until next year. After July 31, U.S. officials will be busy with the elections and European officials will be preparing to appoint new commissioners after the departure of EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler Oct. 31, the WTO source said.
After the week of meetings, Tim Groser, the New Zealand ambassador to the WTO, who is chairing the talks, said the system of informal meetings among members and groups of members had resulted in a much better" interaction" among the negotiators than the previous system of formal meetings with everyone present, the WTO source said.
Groser said the meeting had changed "the tone of negotiations" from one of repeating past positions to one of listening, but still had not entered the "problem solving mode" he had hoped to achieve, the WTO source added.
The negotiators decided they would not try to agree by the end of July on the "modalities" for the agriculture talks--a WTO term for the subjects for discussion and percentage reduction goals for cuts in subsidies and tariff rates--but on a framework for the modalities, the WTO source said.
The framework would not include any percentage-reducing goals. Of the three subjects negotiators had previously agreed to discuss, reductions in farm subsidies, reducing or eliminating export subsidies and subsidized credit guarantees and reducing tariffs to increase market access, market access is proving the most difficult to address, the source said.
Many negotiators said at the meetings they disliked the "blended" formula approach proposed by the United States and the European Union to set up groups of products for different levels of tariff cuts.
Officials from the Cairns Group of exporting countries, led by Australia, which is pushing hard for increased market access, and the G-10 group of countries led by Switzerland, which fears increasing imports, said they were dissatisfied with the blended formula.
Negotiators agreed that developing countries should be exempt from reducing tariffs on certain products. European Union officials said they agreed that China is still adjusting to the reform program that was required when it joined the WTO and that it should not have to engage in as many reforms in the round as countries that have been members of the WTO for a longer time.
Meanwhile, European negotiators said they are cautiously optimistic that an agreement can be reached, possibly by May, Congress Daily, a Washington insider publication, reported today. Congress Daily also said an adviser to the Brazilian government said that country might be willing to agree to lesser market access for its orange juice and sugar in the United States if it is willing to cut subsidies on other products.
Date: 4/15/04
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