When World Trade Organization agriculture negotiations chair Crawford Falconer issued his controversial proposals for areas of compromise last week, he warned members that they are becoming too comfortable with the idea that the talks may fail.
It is time for negotiators and their political masters to “cut to the chase” and begin to make compromises necessary to reach a deal, he said. No previous world trade negotiation failed to reach agreement.
“This needs to be done,” Falconer wrote to all 150 WTO member countries when he released his proposals July 17 suggesting areas of potential agreement if countries moved off the “preferred positions” they have clung to for almost six years.
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Canadian ag ministers said they want to ensure farmers, ranchers and processors are competitive through ongoing regulatory reform and business risk management programs that work.
“We have frankly exhausted all other avenues and the prospect of failure is, as a consequence, now so familiar to us that it can almost present itself seductively to us as our friend.”
He asked negotiators to prepare for intense and serious horse-trading beginning in early September.
The issue confronting negotiators and politicians is whether Falconer’s proposals really are enough to move countries to compromise.
“These are the kinds of compromises most negotiators figure will be required if we are to complete this round,” Canadian negotiator Steve Verheul said. “The issue is if there is the political will.”
Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance executive director Keith Lancastle said there is a possibility that countries will recognize the price of failure will be too high, send their negotiators to Geneva with a mandate to negotiate and then send ministers over in late September or October to make some political compromises.
“We’ll have a better sense of that after next week,” he said July 19. Lancastle and alliance president Alana Koch will be in Geneva this week to lobby for a deal.
But well-connected Ottawa-based trade consultant Peter Clark sees no chance of that.
“Basically, I think this is his last ditch effort and he has done all he can but I don’t think it is enough to get closure,” he said July 20. “Basically, I think this round is dead.”
