1. WTO CHIEF AND EU TRADE COMMISSIONER MEET WITH EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE IN HEARING ON THE WTO
The European Parliament’s Development Committee held a hearing on the WTO on 21 February 2000 in Brussels involving the Director General of the WTO – Mr Mike Moore; the EU Commissioner for Trade – Mr Pascal Lamy; and the Head of the Trade Division of the ACP Secretariat - Mr Peter Gakunu.
In his opening address to the Committee, Mr Moore stated that he wanted the WTO to have closer ties with parliaments including the European Parliament and more transparency on discussions and happenings within the WTO. Mr Moore acknowledged that it was not good enough that many developing countries should be marginalized and kept out of the discussions that take place in the so-called ‘Green Rooms’ of the WTO where many of the crucial decisions are taken. He said that the number of countries participating in the Green Room discussions now included some developing countries. According to Mr Moore there were about 7 or 8 African countries present in the Green Room during the Seattle Ministerial Negotiations (This number has been challenged by other observers present in Seattle). However he failed to explain the criteria for choosing the countries that can participate in the Green Room. Rather he emphasised that the strength of the WTO was its principle of consensus in decision making.
Mr. Moore also acknowledged that trade alone could not solve the problems of the world associated with poverty such as AIDS and debt, however he argued that the fastest reduction of poverty in history had taken place in East Asia and the Pacific. This he attributed partly to trade policies. Still the Director General admitted that reform of the workings of the WTO was needed and welcomed suggestions.
EU Commissioner, Mr Lamy in his speech announced that in the coming months he will be touring developing countries to persuade them on the EU’s position, on holding as soon as possible, a new comprehensive WTO round of negotiations. Mr Lamy’s full speech (in French) can be found on the Internet at http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/speeches_articles/spla07_fr.htm.
Mr Gakunu in his presentation stated that though many ACP and developing countries want to accede to the ACP, the conditions for accession are too onerous for them (55 of the 71 ACP countries are members of the WTO). He later questioned whether the conditions to accede to the WTO for an economic giant like China should be the same as for a small island state like Kiribati. On the Seattle ministerial meeting, Mr Gakunu said that the ACP was extremely disappointed that its written contribution to the draft ministerial declaration was left out of the latter drafts of this document. He said “the intransigence of developed countries to appreciate difficulties faced by developing countries in implementing agreements to which they were not parties in negotiating in the first place, and the failure of the WTO to provide appropriate support for capacity building to enable them to implement these agreements had made developing countries wonder whether the WTO is not just a rich man’s club.” Amongst his proposals for the way forward for the WTO were: a) The WTO must improve transparency. Choice of subjects for the Green Rooms should be made in full consultation with all members. Another alternative is to disband the Green Room approach and use the regional grouping concept. b) The WTO and the international donor community should provide adequate and appropriate technical assistance to developing countries to enable their effective preparation and participation in the negotiations. A copy of Mr Gakunu’s speech is also available from the Eurostep Secretariat.
In the ensuing discussions the question was raised on whether the EU will seek mechanisms to monitor the impact of TRIPs on poor people’s access to essential drugs and technology transfer by Ms Kinnock MEP (UK). In response Mr Lamy stated that he did not believe a review of TRIPs would solve the problem for developing countries. According to Lamy while there are concessions under TRIPs for developing countries, many developing countries are not party to the TRIPs agreement or do not have the legislation in place to take advantage of these concessions. Mr Howitt MEP (UK) asked whether there should not be more emphasis to change unfair trade rules to match proposals made on institutional reform of the WTO. Ms Lucas MEP (UK) also asked whether developing countries should be required to sign only the core WTO agreements, and then to choose whether to sign other WTO agreements depending on whether they coincide with developmental needs. However neither Mr Lamy nor Mr Moore were able to provide precise answers to the two latter questions.
2. EUROPEAN COMMISSION MEETING ON SUSTAINABILITY IMACT ASSESSMENT OF EU PROPOSALS FOR WTO TRADE ROUND
The European Commission held a public meeting on 23 February in Brussels to discuss phase two of the Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA), that it commissioned to the University of Manchester, on its proposals for a new WTO trade round. Phase one of the impact assessment, completed last year, was aimed at developing a methodology for carrying out this assessment. The aim of phase two was to use this methodology to make a broad qualitative assessment of the likely impact of the EU’s proposals for a new round. The assessment attempts to look at the economic impacts (change in level of real income, net fixed capital formation, employment), social impacts (change in level of equity and poverty, health and education, gender inequality), and the environmental impacts (changes in air, water and land quality, biological diversity and air resource stocks) for three country groups, i.e. the EU, developing countries and least developed countries. It uses three basic scenarios to make its assessments: a) the situation prevailing following the conclusion of the Uruguay Trade round (baseline scenario), b) the situation as it is likely to be if the EU’s proposal for a WTO round are carried out; c) the likely situation of a WTO round that results in full liberalisation. According to the findings of phase two of the impact assessment, a scenario in which the EU’s proposals are carried out would be beneficial for developing and least developing countries.
However several NGOs have been very critical of the methods and applications of this assessment. A joint NGO statement on the impact assessment, whose signatories include a number of Eurostep members, states that the Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) has not involved the European Parliament nor the national Member States’ parliaments with a view to informing national debates on trade policy making. The NGO Statement calls on the Commission to among other things: 1) Set up a regular public reporting mechanism whereby progress made in integrating sustainability into EU trade policy can easily be tracked and monitored; 2) Establish and fund an external expert advisory committee to help steer the future SIA process in the EU with the participation of civil society; 3) Develop in consultation with civil society and trading partners, a programme for phase III of the SIA which includes a review of the sustainability impact of the existing Uruguay Round Agreement. You may contact the Eurostep Secretariat for a copy of the NGO statement.
During the meeting itself, many of the participants called for the SIA to: a) differentiate between regions or even sub-regions in reporting on impacts, b) accord a greater range of scores to the regions it assesses so as to better grade the impacts of EU policies, c) use more refined indicators in assessing the impacts of EU policies, including market shares and desegregated incomes. d) take greater consideration of other EU proposals for trade arrangements with other regions such as the ACP-EU agreement so as to gain a coherent picture of the EU’s overall trade policies (suggestions were also made for such an SIA to be carried out on the future ACP-EU trade arrangements that have just been agreed).
Participants also called on the EU to better define the proposals it is making for a new WTO round, e.g. explicitly stating what it means by providing free market access to ‘essentially all’ products from least developed countries, so that the authors of the study could have a more precise picture of the EU’s proposals. Many NGOs at the meeting were of the view that without taking account of the above mentioned suggestions the EU’s SIA remained a mere public relations exercise. The Commission promised to provide more detail on its proposals for phase three of the SIA. The authors of the assessment also welcomed more suggestions from civil society. More information on the SIA including the reports, upcoming meetings, etc are available on the Internet at http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/2000_round/sia.htm
IN BRIEF
The EU
Development Commissioner, Mr Nielson’s speech made at the
UNCTAD X meeting on 18 March in Bangkok is available on the
Internet at http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/whats_new/nie001.htm