Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 5 • Number 12 • 3rd April 2001

Major WTO Members Address Prospects for Ag Talks in Context of Possible New Round

Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say

On 27 March, WTO Members agreed to a work plan that will guide the coming year of agriculture negotiations (see BRIDGES Weekly, 27 March 2001). The work plan engages Members to another year of technical discussions and will cover in the upcoming meetings, inter alia: tariff quota administration, tariffs, amber box subsidies, export subsidies, export credits, state-trading enterprises, export restrictions, food security, food safety, and rural development. Discussions are now focusing on how the work plan will relate to a potential new round of multilateral trade talks. For the time being, Members have decided to continue moving the agriculture agenda forward as specified in Article 20 of the existing WTO Agreement on Agriculture. But as they debate the possibility of a launch of a new round of trade talks at the November WTO Ministerial in Doha, Qatar, some Members are continuing to press for an expanded agriculture mandate.

US trade officials expressed last week that they foresaw the talks heading for more specifics. “We’re heading towards modalities,” said an official from the US Department of Agriculture. “We’re heading towards the methods that will actually bring the reform. We wouldn’t see [the work plan] as just another year of technical work,” the official said. US officials were confident that a new agriculture agreement could be concluded by the end of 2003, when the so-called peace clause — which urges Members to exercise restraint on challenges to others’ subsidies - - expires. While they acknowledged that a new round of broader trade talks would help create momentum, they said that this was not a necessity to reaching agreement on agriculture.

Article 20 does not specify a concluding date for agriculture negotiations.

For its part, the EU argued that a broad round that included a variety of new issues such as investment, competition, and government procurement, could extend the timeline for conclusion of the agriculture talks beyond the expiration of the peace clause. Chief EU agriculture negotiator David Roberts told reporters on 27 March that “by far the most useful thing Qatar could do would be to tell the negotiators when to get to particular parts [of the agriculture talks]“.

Fischler argues EU-US positions show strong similarities

During a speech on 29 March, EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries Franz Fischler made the case that the EU and US agriculture negotiating positions were not too dissimilar. As such, Fischler urged the US administration to focus on these similarities as the agriculture negotiations progressed and as momentum for a new round of trade talks builds, as opposed to concentrating on areas of dispute.

On substance, Fischler underscored that both the EU and US have shown an historical preference for domestic agriculture support, although their methods of delivery are different, while noting that the Cairns Group and developing countries would prefer the elimination of this type of support. He also drew a parallel between the use of export credits in the US and the EU practice of subsidising agricultural exports, again pointing out that both the Cairns Group and developing countries are opposed to these support mechanisms. According to Fischler, transatlantic consensus on agriculture may be more likely than the international trade community had originally anticipated.

“WTO Members Agree On Agriculture Work Plan, Differ On Prospects,” INSIDE US TRADE, 30 March 2001; “EU’s Fischler Compares EU, US Agriculture Policy,” SPEECH TO AECA, BRUSSELS, 29 March 2001; ICTSD Internal Files.