WTO TALKS RESUME: AG NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE MEETS FOR FIRST TIME SINCE SUSPENSION

Following the full-scale resumption of the Doha Round trade talks last week, WTO Members on 9 February held the first regular multilateral 'special session' meeting of the agriculture negotiating committee since June 2007. In spite of this return to standard practice, delegates believe that any progress in the still-deadlocked negotiations will occur in the quiet, informal bilateral and small-group meetings that have continued to take place (see BRIDGES Weekly, 7 February 2007).

At the gathering (which was in off-the-record, 'informal' mode), Chair Ambassador Crawford Falconer (New Zealand) described how discussions were moving forward, and mapped out his plans for future meetings. In practice, it was little different from the informal 'transparency forums' that he has convened in recent months for negotiators to share what they had been discussing elsewhere. Falconer said that the next 'special session' meeting open to the entire Membership would likely be held in two weeks, and a further one in about four weeks' time. In the meantime, Members would also continue their own attempts to search for convergence, whether bilaterally or in small groups.

The agriculture chair added that he would continue to convene informal "fireside chats" with a group of around two dozen ambassadors speaking for a representative cross-section of different negotiating interests. Any progress in these, or in the other small-group and bilateral consultations, would then be reported to other Members multilaterally.

Assuming that some movement takes place, Falconer said he would then return to the pattern of intense negotiations that had marked the ultimately unsuccessful push for an agreement last July: a series of 'Room F' meetings limited to around 20 representative delegations, alternating with others open to the full membership.

Members were particularly emphatic about the need to 'multilateralise' the results of informal consultations, by relating them back to the entire Membership. While they acknowledged that these smaller meetings were necessary to foster agreement at this stage of the negotiations, they stressed the importance of transparency and inclusiveness - in other words, for smaller countries to not be left completely on the sidelines.

In another reference to the last push for a deal, Falconer suggested that he might also prepare 'reference papers' indicating areas of convergence and divergence on different issues in the negotiations, building on those he produced last year. He also indicated that the draft 'modalities' text which he circulated last June could form the basis of future work. Although 'modalities' entail formulae and figures for tariff and subsidy cuts as well as exceptions to them, the lack of consensus between Members meant that Falconer was unable to outline any specific parameters for an eventual agreement in that document. Instead, the text reflects almost every proposal that has been put forward in the negotiations, pointing to hundreds of outstanding differences that need to be resolved (see BRIDGES Weekly, 28 June 2006).

However, he said a change of attitude since last summer might have made dealing with the 72-page text less unwieldy. While many Members had previously been afraid that the intense negotiations amongst the 'G-6' major trading powers - Australia, Brazil, the EU, India, Japan and the US - risked marginalise their own concerns, Falconer suggested that they were now more confident that the negotiating process would be inclusive. This greater trust might help them accept a more streamlined text that better reflects progress in the areas where there has been some convergence.

Sources report that most of the countries that intervened at the meeting agreed that some sort of breakthrough was required in the weeks ahead.

Fireside chat focuses on domestic support, sensitive products

Sources reported that Falconer hosted a 'fireside chat' on 12 February at which roughly two dozen ambassadors discussed possible ways forward on domestic support and on the tariff reduction formula for the 'sensitive products' that both developed and developing countries will be able to shield from the full force of cuts in return for creating new import quotas.

At this meeting, participants explored options for disciplining product-specific subsidies in ways that could enable them to achieve their objectives, rather than focusing on the controversial 'headline numbers' for overall percentage cuts to trade-distorting support. These latter have tended to preoccupy negotiators to date, with little success. No real movement was apparent, however, either on this issue or on sensitive products.

Following the earlier gathering on 9 February, Falconer had told journalists that issues of specific interest to developing countries, such as 'special products' and the 'special safeguard mechanism,' would be the subject of future fireside chats. Developing countries will be allowed to exempt, at least partially, a to-be-determined number of 'special' farm products from regular tariff reduction, on the basis of food security and livelihood concerns. The 'special safeguard mechanism' would afford them a measure of protection from import surges.

Fischer Boel visits Washington for talks

Meanwhile, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel visited Washington on 8-9 February for talks with senior US officials, including Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and members of Congress. She also met with US Trade Representative Susan Schwab.

For months, the EU and the US have been in a circular argument about what is necessary to break out of the impasse in the Doha Round agriculture talks: Brussels says that the US needs to lower the ceiling on its trade-distorting farm subsidies substantially beyond its current offer; Washington counters that it won't do so until the EU and others agree to expand access to their agricultural markets. In more recent weeks, their negotiators have been attempting to go beyond the contentious percentage figures for overall tariff and subsidy cuts to try to flesh out details about the various product-specific exemptions and rules that will determine the extent to which market access will expand and subsidy spending be restrained. In theory, they will use this knowledge to "reverse engineer" the potential outlines of an overall accord.

In an interview with Reuters, Fischer Boel described her meetings in Washington as positive, but appeared to suggest that agreement was not yet near. "We need to see a willingness from other players to find a common ground," she said.

While in Washington, the EU agriculture chief paid special attention to the debate over the 2007 US farm bill, the legislation that Congress will write in consultation with the White House to set out farm spending over the next five years.

On 9 February, Fischer Boel made a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in which she urged the US to follow Brussels' lead and reform farm support programmes to make them less trade-distorting. Such reforms would in turn allow it to offer deeper subsidy cuts in the trade negotiations. "I can only urge the US Congress not to write a farm bill that would be detrimental to the Doha Round," she said. "The 2002 farm bill rightly faced worldwide criticism when it was passed, as a move away from market-oriented farm policy. The 2007 Farm Bill should correct mistakes made in 2002, not reinforce them."

Although the Bush administration's proposals for the farm bill take some steps to reduce incentives for overproduction, officials from the EU and elsewhere have said that they do not appear to go far enough (see BRIDGES Weekly, 7 February 2007).

Fischer Boel also took pains to argue that the EU was already offering valuable commercial opportunities to agricultural exporters elsewhere in the world. Rejecting the notion that new market access would arise predominantly from tariff reduction, she said that the EU's subsidy cuts would lead to "some shrinkage in domestic production," and the eventual elimination of export support would reduce exports from the EU. "Between them, these two developments will make space for our competitors on our markets and on third country markets," she argued. "Our current formal offer would slice many billions of euros off our farm sector receipts, handing corresponding gains to others."

Calling for "leadership and a sense of realism in what each party asks for and offers," she urged Washington to "give the right signals."

ICTSD reporting; "EU nudges US on Doha, farm bill," REUTERS, 10 February 2007; "EU agriculture commissioner talks with U.S. officials on Doha round, subsidies," ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8 February 2007.