20th March 2008
Developments Since the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference
Agriculture and services are the only areas where negotiations on further trade liberalisation are mandated in the WTO Agreements themselves. These talks started on schedule in 2000, but no noticeable progress was made until broader negotiations were launched in November 2001.
At Doha, ministers struggled to find a compromise acceptable to all WTO Members, who were (and continue to be) utterly divided over how to deal with agricultural export subsidies. The EU — a liberal user of this export competition tool — rejected the draft language presented to ministers, which called for the reduction of export subsidies “with a view to phasing [them] out”. The phrase emerged from prolonged negotiations with the qualification that the talks must be carried out “without prejudging the outcome of the negotiations.” Thus, while many agricultural exporters rejoiced in finally getting a ‘commitment’ to the elimination of export subsidies, the EU and countries such as Japan, Norway and Switzerland have since stressed that Members are only committed to ‘working in the direction of’ such elimination and have not agreed to a deadline for reaching the goal.
Another ambiguous point is which export subsidies the negotiations would aim to phase out. In an uneasy compromise between the US position that the talks should focus on export subsidies and the EU demand that they cover all forms of export support (including export credit schemes, which the US is a main user of), the Ministerial Declaration speaks of “all forms of export subsidies.” The negotiations are also to aim at “substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support.” While some Cairns and Like-minded Group members regard this mandate as a potential gate for negotiations on all categories of subsidies, Members such as the Europeans and Japan maintain that it only refers to support notified under the Amber Box of trade-distorting subsidies (comprising production-linked subsides, price support, etc.).