DOHA ROUND NEGOTIATIONS OFFICIALLY RE-LAUNCHED

The Doha round talks are set to resume full-scale again. On 31 January, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told a heads-of-delegation meeting in Geneva that Members would resume "negotiations fully across the whole spectrum." This decision followed shortly on a meeting between nearly 30 ministers on 27 January at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum annual summit in Davos.

The round has been suspended since last July, primarily over deep divisions on farm trade. Officials have continued to meet informally since then, especially after a 'soft' relaunch of discussions in November (see BRIDGES Weekly, 22 November 2006, http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/06-11-22/story1.htm).

Meanwhile, also on 31 January, US President George W. Bush called on Congress to renew his 'trade promotion authority' (TPA) mandate, currently set to expire at the end of June. Under the TPA, Congress can accept or reject trade agreements the administration has negotiated, but cannot make changes to them. Extending the TPA is widely believed to be essential to concluding the Doha Round in the foreseeable future. Also in Washington this week, the administration tabled its proposals for future farm spending (see related story, this issue), which will weigh heavily on farm subsidy negotiations at the WTO.

Talks continuing in many forms

In re-launching the talks, Lamy told negotiators to "be prepared for the intensification of the work in the negotiating groups in the weeks to come at the initiative of the chairs." He also asked them to "engage constructively in this phase with full convictions that this deal is doable." The Geneva-based delegations generally welcomed the resumption of the talks.

Resuming regular activity in Geneva means that the negotiating groups will once again start holding regularly-scheduled meetings, in either formal or off-the-record mode, suggest sources. The pace of informal discussions over the past two months had been largely left up to the chairs of each group. Members have also met intensely in bilateral and small-group settings, with developing countries complaining of a lack of transparency. With the re-launch of official negotiations, Lamy promised that "the process would be bottom-up, inclusive and transparent, but continue to allow for more discreet, informal, or bilateral, discussions."

Crunch issues: Focus shifts to 'reverse engineering'

Agriculture continues to be one of the main crunch issues for negotiators. In order for WTO Members to reach a deal, trade observers believe that the US must agree to deeper cuts to its ceiling on trade-distorting farm subsidies and the EU must offer more agricultural market access. In addition, developing countries, such as Brazil and India, must further reduce their industrial tariffs.

In terms of their negotiating approach, Members feel that negotiating 'headline' percentage figures for overall tariff and subsidy cuts first, and only then discussing exemptions had failed to produce a deal, especially on agriculture.

In recent weeks, negotiators from several countries have been attempting the reverse: to flesh out details about the various exemptions and rules that will determine the actual extent to which market access will grow and subsidy spending be restrained, and use them to "reverse engineer" an overall accord.

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said that the new "focus on key sensitivities and key priorities and then reverse engineering [them] into top line number is a promising approach," one that "has a chance of success" (see BRIDGES Weekly, 17 January 2007, http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/07-01-17/story1.htm). She stressed, however, that a great deal of technical work still remained to be done for the contours of a possible deal to become apparent.

Broad differences appear to persist between the US and the EU in the agriculture negotiations. In Davos and Geneva, EU Trade Commissioner Mandelson repeatedly expressed the belief that the "emerging landing zone" for an accord would be around aproposal by the G-20 group of major developing countries, "even if we [the EU] cannot meet it precisely." "Bidding for more would assuredly commit us to failure," he said.

The G-20's proposed 54 percent average farm tariff cut is well below the 66 percent average cut sought by the US, though still higher than anything Brussels has offered. Asked about the EU trade chief's remarks, Schwab said "I don't think we know where a landing zone is."

A crucial set of 'non-headline' figures for many developing countries will be the number and treatment of 'special' farm products that they will be allowed to slate for gentler tariff cuts based on food security, livelihood security, and rural development concerns. Ministers representing the G-33 group (which was formed in support of special products) present in Davos called for placing the concerns of poor, small-scale farmers "at the forefront of all concerns". They stressed that "developing countries need time and policy space to improve their poor farmers' productivity and incomes, and to curtail the risk of dislocation from agriculture from unmanageable agricultural trade liberalisation."

Getting closer to conclusion?

According to Lamy, "The political conditions are ... more favourable for the conclusion of the round than they have been for a long time." In Davos he said he would convene a ministerial-level gathering to take political decisions if and when it became appropriate. "It won't be tomorrow," he cautioned, however.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said that the talks were "back in business" and "in the endgame." "This is going to end in success or failure in the next two to three months," he stressed following the Davos mini-ministerial. Schwab, on the other hand, said that "just as the last several months have been months of very intensive, quiet consultations and discussions, I suspect the next several months will be characterised by much of the same."

Although Geneva-based trade diplomats say that they have been given a firm mandate to "try to bring the round to closure," many doubt that the major players will be able to bring themselves to a compromise in the time available. Some developing country ambassadors shared scepticism that the US and the EU would be able to take the steps necessary for a deal. Nevertheless, the pace - if not necessarily the substance - of negotiations in Geneva seems set to intensify.

ICTSD reporting; "WTO Members Told to Restart Negotiations," AP, 1 February 2007; "WTO backs call for full-scale Doha talks resumption," REUTERS, 1 February 2007; "House Democrat seeks way forward on trade," REUTERS, 30 January 2007; "White House urges renewal of Bush trade authority," REUTERS, 29 January; "Democrats Say They Intend to Reshape Bush's Trade Authority," DOW JONES, 30 January 2007; "Ministers agree to resume WTO talks; Blair upbeat," REUTERS, 29 January 2007; "World trade negotiators 'back in business'," REUTERS, 27 January 2007; "Ministers inject fresh life into Doha talks," FINANCIAL TIMES, 28 January 2007; "Plan to Revive Trade Talks Is Offered in Davos," NEW YORK TIMES, 28 January 2007.