WTO: 2006 NEWS ITEMS

Monday, 1 May 2006
TRADE NEGOTIATIONS COMMITTEE

Lamy calls for “shared sense of urgency” in the trade negotiations

Director-General Pascal Lamy, in his introductory statement to the Trade Negotiations Committee on 1 May 2006, said that finding consensus in the negotiations “remains doable, but only if a sense of urgency—which I feel is not always shared by all—starts appearing in each and every delegation”. “We must now focus our efforts on working intensively, continuously and in an effective manner on a text-based negotiating process, which is solidly anchored in Geneva”, he added.

Statement by Pascal Lamy

You will recall that at our Informal Heads of Delegation meeting on 24 April we reviewed recent progress in the negotiations and considered the next appropriate steps in our process. According to our normal practice, my statement to the Informal Heads of Delegation meeting has been circulated as JOB(06)/127.

I think we had a good meeting last Monday. We collectively faced up to the fact that we have not been able to establish modalities in Agriculture and NAMA, or reach an agreement on the RTA Transparency Mechanism, by April 30. We faced these facts squarely, but not sensationally. We also heard expressions of disappointment from delegations, but we did not hear recriminations or attempts at blame shifting. Instead — and I think this is very important for the nature of our process here — we engaged in a constructive discussion and showed a high level of convergence on how to move forward in the most efficient and practical manner. This is encouraging for the work ahead. It is also encouraging that political commitment to conclude the negotiations successfully has been reaffirmed in many quarters since last week. In short, we have had a disappointment which we have to acknowledge, but not a disaster, and we have already moved to convert disappointment into determination.

Last week we also had the opportunity to listen to the analysis of the Chairs of Agriculture, NAMA and Rules as well as their proposals for the next stage of negotiations. From their interventions last Monday, it is clear that some hard work has been undertaken over the past few weeks by all delegations and officials, both Geneva and in capitals, even if we are still some way from where we had hoped to be. As we will hear today, the other areas of the negotiations are also making progress.

There is little doubt in my mind that the coming weeks will place significant strain on all of us, but as we agreed last Monday, we will now have to be on-call on a permanent basis. I am, of course, sensitive to the capacity concerns and constraints of smaller delegations and, to the extent possible, we must make every effort to organise our work with this concern in our minds.

What is imperative now is to make significant progress on key issues as quickly as possible, so that we can reach agreement on modalities in agriculture and NAMA rapidly, being clear in our minds that it is now a question of weeks rather than months.

We all know that the Round consists of a much wider range of issues than just Agriculture and NAMA. The priorities and ambitions of delegations range across the full negotiating agenda of the Single Undertaking, as well as the other areas of the DDA. At the same time, we also know that establishing modalities in Agriculture and NAMA is necessary to unlock other issues. Our negotiations must move as a convoy, but some ships are in front — and there are reasons for this. In setting the April deadlines in Hong Kong, Ministers established this sequence which both our mandate and the logic of the negotiations require us to respect.

Let me now briefly highlight a few points on Agriculture and NAMA.

On Agriculture, work has already intensified since the Chairman reported to the informal HODs a week ago. Ambassador Falconer has held intensive consultations using reference papers, and a number of delegations have made constructive proposals. Although there is still much to do in a short time, it is encouraging that delegations now appear ready to engage fully in this process.

After the substantive discussions that have taken place on export competition, blue box, green box, special safeguard mechanism or tropical products, we urgently need more work and more texts on special products and sensitive products, so that the impact of cuts in tariffs can be translated into a quantum of increased market access, which is what ministers should negotiate.

On NAMA, Ambassador Stephenson has been consulting widely with delegations. Although it is clear that agreement on core modalities still remains elusive, I understand that there is a willingness among delegations to engage in the intensive process envisaged by the Chair — and this is of course fundamental for a successful outcome. Here again, good technical work has taken place on paragraph 8 and 6, but the limited number of developing countries which will have to implement formula cuts still have to work on simulations in order to determine the specific lines which they would want to shield from the formula reduction.

In the area of Rules (RTAs), the Chairman provided us with a concise report last Monday, in which he emphasized that we are close to an agreement on a decision on RTA transparency. However, two areas of divergence remain, one regarding the bodies or body that would apply this transparency mechanism and the other regarding the scope of the transparency mechanism. I urge delegations to re-double their efforts to assist Ambassador Valles in bringing this important negotiation to a successful conclusion.

Let me now turn briefly to the other areas of the negotiations.

On Anti-dumping, Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, including Fisheries Subsidies, a large number of new proposals were received since the last meeting of the Group: 22 new papers on anti-dumping, five new papers on subsidies disciplines and four new papers on fisheries subsidies. The Chairman decided that additional time to advance the work of the Group is needed, in order to be prepared to table a Chairman's text by the summer break, should conditions be appropriate, and has therefore scheduled a further dedicated session on subsidies for the end of the month.

In the Services negotiations serious progress is being made. Twenty plurilateral meetings have taken place since our last TNC, gathering groups of requesting and requested Members, based on twenty-two collective requests submitted in accordance with the Hong Kong Declaration. Another round of request-offer meetings, plurilateral as well as bilateral, has been scheduled for mid-May, so as to keep the momentum and expedite the overall process of the services negotiations.

In the area of S&D, Members have continued their consideration of the remaining Agreement-specific proposals and have also begun work on the outstanding issues — and this is a good sign. However, progress has been rather limited with most Members sticking to their earlier positions. As far as Duty Free Quota Free market access for LDCs is concerned, stakeholders are working in order to operationalise the decision we took at Hong Kong.

In the Trade Facilitation area, negotiations continue to progress well. Two important new proposals at the last meeting dealing with S&D treatment and capacity-building have ensured that all three pillars of these negotiations are being addressed in a balanced and mutually supportive way. The negotiations are moving towards text-based drafting, as called for by Ministers in Hong Kong.

On Trade & Environment, there has been a good start to the process of examination of products in the CTESS with technical work launched. Another technical discussion around mid-May has been agreed to keep the process on track.

In TRIPS and Dispute Settlement, we must quickly develop a more complete picture of the issues that could be the basis of a final agreement in the negotiations.

On Cotton, the last meeting of this committee was just last Friday and I understand that a useful discussion of the C4 proposal took place. On the development assistance aspects of cotton, at this time, I can inform Members that progress in this area is in positive evolution. As a follow up to the 1 August 2004 Decision, and in line with instructions given to the Director-General by Ministers in Hong Kong, I will be making a Mid-Term Progress Report in my capacity as Director-General to the 15 May meeting of the General Council.

On preference erosion, the Secretariat organized a seminar on the erosion of preferences in the areas of Agriculture and NAMA on 3 April. The discussions at that meeting have helped shed more light on the substance of the issue and on other recent work undertaken on preference erosion, including by other institutions. Clearly, this issue remains on the table in the on-going work of the Agriculture and NAMA groups. While the contours of this issue are becoming more apparent, work now needs to be concentrated on discussing possible solutions to address this issue.

To complete the picture, I would once again like to review progress in some of the other areas of our work under the DDA, even if they are not strictly speaking under the TNC.

On Aid for Trade, our two-track process continues to move forward. The first track — my own consultations — has reaffirmed the strong commitment among donors, as well as multilateral and regional agencies, to mobilizing significant additional resources for Aid for Trade. As for the second track — the Task Force on operationalizing Aid for Trade — Members have now met three times, and discussed delivery mechanisms and monitoring, as well as definitional issues, the scope of Aid for Trade, current flows and future trends. The Task Force has broadly consulted with multilateral financial and development agencies, regional development banks, relevant UN agencies as well as various groups of members, including the non-resident members during the Geneva week. After this intensive period of consultation and fact-finding, the next step will be to examine the linkage between these issues, and how they might fit together into a coherent whole.

On the Integrated Framework (IF), work has intensified among the different stakeholders of the Task Force on the Enhancement of the IF. We are hopeful that the Task Force will be submitting recommendations soon to the IF managing body, the IF Working Group and to the members of the IF Steering Committee. All these bodies meet in the second week of May.

On issues related to Small Economies, it is important that we continue to pursue the aim of providing responses to these issues in relevant areas of the negotiations, in particular Agriculture and NAMA. There have been some hopeful signs of constructive thinking in this respect. In addition, work is continuing under the Work Programme in the Dedicated Session of the Committee on Trade on Development, whose Chair will report to the General Council later this month. I also understand that some good progress was made last week at the Dedicated Session's most recent meeting.

So, over the broad scope of the DDA, the picture is by no means a bleak one. The fact remains, however, that all this effort and all this progress could be put at risk if negotiators fail to unlock the modality issues.

I will now provide an update on my work on Implementation, in my capacity as Director-General, and further to the reports I made at the February and March meetings of the TNC.

In keeping with the Hong Kong Decision, I have continued my consultative process on all outstanding implementation issues under paragraph 12(b) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration, without prejudice to the positions of Members. In this process, I have been assisted by a number of the Chairpersons of concerned WTO bodies acting as my Friends and two of my Deputy Directors-General, Valentine Rugwabiza for TRIMs issues and Rufus Yerxa for the issues of GIs and TRIPS/CBD.

On the issue of GI extension, DDG Rufus Yerxa has held a further dedicated consultation on 13 April to complete the earlier discussions held on 16, 21 and 23 March of the compilation of the points and questions that delegations had identified as needing attention. Delegations completed their discussion of the remaining 38 (out of the total of 91) issues and questions. While much of the discussion was repetitious, some of the questions raised enabled Members to explore certain issues in greater depth than previously. At the end of the meeting, DDG Yerxa said that he would be informally in contact with individual delegations to sound out where delegations feel we are, and what should be the next steps in the consultative process.

On the issue of TRIPS and CBD, Mr. Yerxa has been in touch with interested delegations and further open-ended consultations have been convened for the end of this week, on 4 and 5 May, with a view to exploring how to move forward on the key issues. I will report to you again on this matter at a later stage.

On all the other Implementation issues — the other TRIPS issues, Balance of Payments, Market Access, TRIMs, Customs Valuation, Safeguards and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), the situation has not evolved significantly since my last report. In many of these areas, the ball is essentially in the court of the proponents. I think that the time is fast approaching when we will need to agree among ourselves on which issues still to actively pursue. I do not think there is much point in expending our scarce time on issues which, in practice if not in a formal sense, have either lapsed, been overtaken by events or reached the limit of possible progress or in re-activating issues which have become inactive with the tacit acceptance of Members.

I am hopeful that, in my next report on all outstanding implementation issues under paragraph 12(b), I will be able to reflect progress in at least some areas. But as we all know, any Chair can only report the convergence achieved by Members.

That concludes my report on Implementation.

Before I conclude my introductory statement, let me repeat that this is and will remain a negotiation among you all. And as it is you who hold the key to the success of these negotiations, I urge each and every one of you to engage directly with each other at every level. I do not believe that we have lost the opportunity to produce positive results, but we really have no more time to spare. We must now focus our efforts on working intensively, continuously and in an effective manner on a text-based negotiating process, which is solidly anchored in Geneva. And let me reiterate our collective responsibility to ensure an inclusive, bottom-up, transparent and participatory process. Let us be clear: we will not get there by the work of magic, but by our collective determination and effort to breach remaining gaps and find consensus. This, in my view, remains doable, but only if a sense of urgency — which I feel is not always shared by you all — starts appearing in each and every delegation.

Reports by chairpersons of bodies established by the TNC (all documents will be available soon) (TN/CTD/15, TN/DS/16, TN/MA/18, TN/RL/17, TN/S/27, TN/TE/15)

Statement by TNC chair Pascal Lamy at the 1 May TNC meeting
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