WTO: 2005 NEWS ITEMS
7 February 2006
TRADE NEGOTIATIONS COMMITTEE
Lamy urges members to “step up” negotiations
Director-General Pascal Lamy, in his statement to the Trade Negotiations Committee on 7 February 2006, noted the “very detailed timelines” in the Hong Kong Declaration and urged negotiators “to intensify contacts with other delegations and with your capitals, to move us towards the elements we will need to conclude this Round at the end of the year”.
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Statement by Pascal Lamy
Since the beginning of the year, I have been pursuing my contacts with a
wide range of Members, at various different levels and in various
locations. My activities have included meetings with various groupings
(African Group, ACPs, LDCs, Grulac, G-20), meetings with a larger number
of Ambassadors here in Geneva and with a number of Ministers, including
in the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos some 10 days ago. I
have also just now returned from a visit to Chile, Peru and Argentina.
From the conversations I have had during these activities, I have
received three clear messages:
one, that there is widespread commitment to making good on what was agreed at Hong Kong,
two, that there is a shared intention to move ahead across the whole of the DDA, making progress on all issues, and
three, that all interlocutors understand that they will all have to move from their current positions and are willing to do so by moving “in concert”.
Obviously, Agriculture (in particular market access and domestic
support) and NAMA remain the flagships of the convoy, but no-one is in
any doubt that our convoy is a large one. These two issues have an
important role in leading the convoy to port, but we all know that the
convoy must arrive together, this is the very essence of our common
principle of the “Single Undertaking”. In the bodies under the TNC
alone, we are working on 10 separate areas — beyond Agriculture
(including cotton) and NAMA, including Services, where the Hong Kong
Declaration opened the door for plurilateral negotiations which will be
to a great extent demand driven. For the negotiations to achieve real
progress over the next weeks, the request/offer negotiations must be
intensified. And we also have Rules, TRIPS, Environment, Trade
Facilitation, DSU, S&D and Implementation.
In the other areas of the DDA, which are under the General Council, we
also have a long list of very important issues like small economies,
e-commerce or commodities to name a few. Even a quick look at the Hong
Kong Ministerial Declaration illustrates the size of the task ahead of
us.
The Declaration includes a number of firm deadlines, together with
instructions in other areas. To help us plan and focus our work, you
will have received a paper setting out the various timelines for our
work this year. The paper repeats the very detailed timelines in the
Hong Kong Declaration on Agriculture, NAMA and Services, and fleshes out
with greater precision the work ahead in the areas where the HK
Declaration is more general. This paper is not intended as an item of
discussion, or negotiation in its own right. It does not alter the
balance achieved in the Hong Kong Declaration. It is simply a tool to
assist you, as well as the Chairs of the negotiating groups, in keeping
an overview of the progress that is needed to advance the negotiations
as a whole, and in making sure that no issue slips behind.
Now a word on process. There can be no doubt that our process pre-Hong
Kong served us well. It met with widespread satisfaction, as we heard
from delegations many times during our preparatory process. We should
therefore maintain and, of course, improve on it. A transparent
inclusive process, based on a bottom-up approach is clearly in the
interests of us all. Let me stress here what I believe is the essential
outreach role played by the different groupings before and at Hong Kong
which in my view needs to continue throughout 2006.
The work must also continue to be integrated in a coherent way, across
both the subjects and the different levels of negotiation. This means we
clearly need not only to intensify the work in the negotiating groups,
but also at the level of capital-based officials and of Ministers.
I think we all recognize the value of this multi-layered process, and I
am sure no-one has any doubt that the Geneva process remains the
backbone of the negotiations. Whatever may take place outside of this
process, at whatever level cannot be anything other than an input to the
multilateral forum where the decisions are made.
For my part, as I said, I have already intensified my consultations with
delegations here and capitals, including regular meetings with the
coordinators of the regional groupings. I will continue to work in close
cooperation with the Chairs of the negotiating groups and with the
General Council Chairman, and together we will ensure that there is a
high level of coordination across our work.
The Ministers have given me quite a long “to do” list: chairing this
body, of course; intensifying my work on Implementation, which I will
come back to in a minute; providing updates on the development
assistance aspects of Cotton; and working on Aid for Trade. Just a word
on this last task — I am now ready to establish the Aid for Trade Task
Force — the composition of which I will announce at the General Council
tomorrow — and to start consulting on appropriate mechanisms to increase
financial resources for Aid for Trade. I intend to ensure that we make
solid progress in this work, which I expect to continue through the year
at different levels, so that the Aid for Trade programme becomes
operational this year. I shall keep you informed of progress in all
these areas.
However, this always remains a negotiation among participants. If you
are to reach agreement on schedule, it is essential for you to intensify
your contacts with other delegations and with your capitals, to move us
towards the elements we will need to conclude this Round at the end of
the year. In particular, it is now urgently necessary to move to
negotiating elements of texts and to flesh out discussions on generally
applicable provisions and formulae with bilateral consideration of
concrete and specific trade effects. I strongly encourage participants
to step up this work.
I will now make my first report on Implementation in my role as
Director-General, as mandated in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.
Ministers have asked me to intensify my consultative process on all
outstanding implementation issues under paragraph 12(b) of the Doha
Ministerial Declaration, without prejudice to the positions of Members.
I have also been asked to report to each regular meeting of the TNC and
the General Council, and the Council is to review progress and take any
appropriate action no later than 31 July 2006.
I have already started intensifying the consultative process, with the
assistance of a number of the Chairpersons of concerned WTO bodies
acting as my Friends and two of my Deputy Directors-General, Valentine
Rugwabiza who will take up the TRIMs issues and Rufus Yerxa for the
issues of GIs and TRIPS/CBD. I will be meeting with my friends this week
and I intend them to ask them to resume informal consultations as early
as next week. I will report on progress achieved at the next TNC
meeting.
The report I made on these issues to the last TNC meeting in November
2005 showed that the situation had not evolved significantly since July,
when the General Council renewed the mandate given to the
Director-General in the July 2004 Decision. It was for this reason and
with the aim of fulfilling the commitment on this issue they undertook
at Doha, that Ministers instructed that we continue this process. They
also reiterated their instructions to all relevant bodies to find
appropriate solutions as a priority. As I have said before, we will need
both flexibility and creativity in our approaches to these issues if we
are to be able to respect our mandate. I count on the co-operation of
all of you in this task.