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Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Groups applaud collapse of WTO negotiations
By Miko Santos
THE government called on developing countries to stick together and pursue calls for agricultural trade reforms even as members of the Stop the New Round! (SNR) coalition, a broad grouping of social movements, labor unions, political parties and NGOs, welcomed news about the collapse of World Trade Organization negotiations (WTO) in Mexico on Monday.
During a hastily organized press conference, the SNR made a long distance call to Walden Bello, executive director of Focus on the Global South and a member of the SNR contingent to Cancun, for the latest developments in Mexico.
Bello relayed to the group how the negotiations crumbled under the weight of developing countries' unprecedented solidarity in opposing further liberalization in agriculture without commitments from developed countries to reduce the massive subsidies that are making it impossible for poor farmers to compete in the market.
Negotiators also stood firm against the so-called “Singapore issues” or proposed new areas of negotiations such as investment, competition policy, government procurement and trade facilitation.
Ministers from developing countries walked out of negotiations appalled at the arrogance of developed countries in insisting on these new negotiating tacks. This prompted WTO officials to formally declare that the talks had collapsed.
“It was very unexpected that it would come this early,” Bello said. This is the second time the WTO negotiations stalemated. The first was in Seattle in 1999.
Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo noted that the 21 developing countries represented in the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting account for more than 50 percent of the world's population and should be given a chance to be heard by rich nations led by the United States and Europe.
"We have a voice in America and Europe. This group should stick together" to push for the global trade reforms, Lorenzo said on government radio from Cancun, where he led the Philippine delegation.
Lorenzo said the collapse of the Cancun talks should be blamed on rich nations for continuing to ignore calls to cut domestic support, eliminate export subsidies and open up their agricultural markets to developing countries.
He said there was a big gap between agricultural subsidies offered by rich and poor nations tp their farmers.
The Philippines, for instance, spends less than $20 a year for individual farmers while Thailand and Malaysia between US$900 and US$1,800, he said.
In contrast, farmers from Europe and the United States get between US$60,000 and US$100,000 in help from their governments, he said.
Developing countries also opposed proposed negotiations on cross-border investment, competition policies, trade facilitation and government procurement.
WTO ministers said there would be another attempt by December 15 to jumpstart the round of talks started in Doha, Qatar two years ago. |
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