Trade negotiators from more than 20 countries including Canada are gathering in Geneva this week to consider whether there is enough momentum to relaunch intensive agricultural
negotiations.
Steve Verheul, Canada’s chief agriculture negotiator at the World Trade Organization, says a relaunch of talks suspended in July 2006 is possible, if not likely.
It all depends on the United States, specifically a congressional decision on whether to extend fast track trade negotiating authority to the American administration before it expires July 1 and whether the Americans are willing to go beyond recent farm bill proposals to embrace deeper agricultural domestic support cuts.
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“The U.S. has to move,” Verheul told the annual meeting of Dairy Farmers of Canada Feb. 7. “They are going to have to go much farther (than recent farm bill proposals) if we are to have a deal.”
He said the European Union has moved on reducing market access barriers.
However, he also noted that European and American officials have been meeting in recent weeks for detailed and intense discussions about specific details of a possible deal including tonnages in a market access deal and possible support cuts.
As well, Verheul said European and American political leaders have issued strong statements of support for a relaunch of the talks suspended last July because of deep differences over domestic support cuts, market access and developing country issues.
He told dairy delegates that the outline of a deal will have to be approved by late spring if there is any hope of convincing the U.S. Congress that it should extend legislation that gives the administration the ability to engage effectively in WTO negotiations. Then, intense work will be needed to conclude talks by the end of the year.
“We are getting to a crunch time as far as that goes,” he said.
Verheul also said detailed discussions between the EU and the U.S. are good news for the process because those two trade giants must be prepared to compromise.
However, they are also disconcerting because the two sides may cook up a deal that is not good for other countries and make it a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. That is what happened in 1993 when the last world trade agreement was negotiated.
“We’re in a dangerous period since the U.S. and Europe are talking a lot.”
He said that while the negotiations launched in 2001 in Doha, Qatar, are at a political stalemate, negotiators actually have a clear idea of the outline of a text based on proposals that have been made.
Political will among governments is needed to instruct negotiators to make compromises necessary to get the talks going again.
“The picture (on the details of a deal) is a lot clearer underneath the ground than above the ground,” Verheul said.
This week, WTO director general Pascal Lamy is trying to relaunch talks, summoning negotiators to Geneva for several days of discussions.
“We have to see if it’s real,” Verheul said. “If it is real, things will move very quickly.”
Such a move would force the Canadian government to make early decisions about accepting compromise on politically sensitive issues such as supply management tariff support.
