FREDERICTON – There is little chance a new round of world trade talks will be launched before late next year, a senior federal trade official said last week.
Suzanne Vinet, the senior Agriculture Canada trade official, said July 5 there still are hopes in Washington and Europe that a new comprehensive trade negotiation can be launched this year, before American president Bill Clinton leaves office.
But she said work at World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, shows that gaps remain between country positions even if they are narrowing.
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That would mean an end to the negotiations no earlier than 2005, even if they were put on a three-year fast track.
For those who believe subsidies are the cause of current low grain prices, it represents a long wait until a negotiated subsidy reduction could start.
Vinet spoke after briefing federal and provincial agriculture ministers on WTO issues during the annual ministers’ meeting held here last week.
She told them that agriculture talks in Geneva are bearing some fruit.
And she said there is a growing recognition among negotiators that the ability of countries to use export subsidies will be sharply diminished, if not eliminated, in the next negotiating round.
While that has been Canada’s position for years, supported by the Cairns Group and the United States, Vinet said the European Union also is beginning to accept it as reality.
One of the sticking points of last year’s futile efforts to launch a new WTO negotiation in Seattle, Wash., was the EU’s refusal to accept elimination of export subsidies as a stated goal of the agricultural talks.
“But the Europeans accept we are working toward the elimination,” she said. “That is not part of their position but they recognize it.”
However, the negotiation will be complex since it also will attempt to limit use of such backdoor subsidy tools as concessional credit, insurance or inappropriate food aid.
Vinet also acknowledged that both the U.S. and EU want restrictions or elimination of such state trading entities as the Canadian Wheat Board, which they say is an unfair trader.
