Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 14 • Number 14 • 21st April 2010

Concluding Doha is ‘Top Priority’: Cairns Ministers

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An ambitious and balanced outcome to farm trade talks in the WTO’s troubled Doha Round must be “top priority” for the organisation’s members, said trade ministers from the Cairns Group of countries, a 19-member bloc that supports far-reaching farm trade reform.

The ministers, who met from 19 to 20 April in Punte del Este, Uruguay, also underscored the role of the WTO’s rules-based system in helping countries to emerge from recession. “As the recovery gets underway, the WTO remains the right platform for trade to grow strongly once again,” they declared in a communiqué issued after the meeting.

Ministers from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and Paraguay were at the gathering, as well as from host country Uruguay. However, ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland disrupted travel plans for officials from Costa Rica, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa and Thailand, who were unable to attend as a result. Other countries were represented by senior officials or Geneva-based ambassadors.

Although not Cairns Group members, the US, the EU and Japan joined discussions as “special guests,” along with Mexico and Egypt. The US was represented by its chief agriculture negotiator, Isi Siddiqui, although the recently confirmed US ambassador to the WTO, Michael Punke, was also marooned in Geneva due to the air traffic chaos.

Multilateral process

“Maintaining the primacy of the multilateral process in Geneva is critical,” said the ministers, who nonetheless emphasised that “negotiations in other formats and configurations should support this process.” Farm trade talks have tended to involve both small-group consultations and larger meetings with the full WTO membership - although developing countries in particular have argued that negotiations must be transparent and inclusive.

The ministers also underscored that efforts “at both the technical and political level” were needed - a pointed reference to the slow progress in talks recently, which many officials have blamed on a lack of high-level US engagement.

More ministerial meetings would be needed to bring the Doha negotiations to a successful conclusion, the group said - including on the margins of forthcoming meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). However, the communiqué stopped short of calling for a gathering of all WTO ministers, reflecting a widely shared consensus that another high-profile failure could be damaging for the faltering Doha round.

Weighing in on the sidelines, the Cairns Group Farm Leaders - an umbrella group that represents the agriculture associations of the Cairns member countries - stressed that the group’s trade ministers should “not allow a lowering of ambition” in the Doha Round talks. “Any additional trade distorting mechanisms within the negotiations must be strongly resisted,” the group added, “including the possible misuse of the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM).” Disagreement over the SSM - a tool intended to protect developing country farmers from large swings in prices and trade volumes - has been widely blamed for the collapse of major trade talks in July 2008.

Geneva: chair plans ‘ice-breaker’

Meanwhile, sources reported that the chair of the farm trade talks was planning further meetings in Geneva to discuss next steps with WTO members. The chair of the agriculture negotiations, Ambassador David Walker (New Zealand), reportedly intends to convene trade officials on 3 May for an ‘ice-breaker’ discussion that delegates said was meant to initiate a debate on the rationale and timetable for further technical-level work.

The chair is planning a “twin-track process,” said officials, with discussions likely to take place both on the outstanding negotiating issues in the farm trade talks and also on the data that WTO members will need to provide to finalise an eventual Doha deal.

If negotiators agree, technical talks would begin again around 17 May, said sources, although members would need first to concur that this would be useful. The chair “won’t force people to talk,” said one official, noting that there is “no point in calling meetings in which people sit round the room and look at each other.” Recently, stalemate in the talks at a political level has made many negotiators reluctant to move beyond established established positions.

Paris: five-party talks

Five major trading powers are due to meet in Paris at ministerial level next week, said sources, at what is believed to be the initiative of US ambassador Punke. Consensus amongst the countries concerned - Brazil, China, the EU, India and the US - is seen as a critical condition for achieving a Doha deal. “If they can crack something, there’s some progress to be made,” said one trade source, who nonetheless expressed scepticism that the talks would lead to any significant breakthrough.

ICTSD reporting.