A Mini-Ministerial Green Room meeting was held on the 8th of November in the WTO headquarters.  The meeting was attended by Ministers, officials and Ambassadors of 28 delegations and convened and chaired by Pascal Lamy (Director General and chair of the Trade Negotiations Committee).

This meeting was an attempt to give momentum to the stuttering preparation for the forthcoming Ministerial conference in Hong Kong this December.  However, the overall outcome of the meeting was a lowering, or “recalibrating”, of expectations of the Hong Kong Ministerial, scaling down expectations and scope especially in the areas of agriculture and NAMA (non-agricultural market access).

This “recalibrating” of expectations has consequences for the timetable of the Doha Round, questioning the aspiration for completing negotiations by the end of 2006.

Realization that the “full modalities” for agriculture and NAMA cannot be achieved (or rather agreed) has led to a rescheduling.  It is now hoped that instead of achieving the full modalities in Hong Kong, a level in-between the July 2004 framework and the full modalities will be achieved, which can then be finalized in a suggested additional Ministerial to be held in March, three months following Hong Kong, in order to make up lost ground.

These setbacks in expectations and in the timetable are due to the divergence of views and failure to bridge key differences on global trade.  It was asserted that the Mini-Ministerial has merely given definition to theses key differences.

The Doha round has stumbled on disagreements over the pace and scope of measures to cut trade-distorting agricultural subsidies in rich countries and to lower import tariffs on farm produce and industrial goods.

Powerful developing countries (Brazil and India) argue that subsidies and tariffs in rich nations depress global farm prices and prevent growers in poor nations from competing effectively on world markets, and thus trade-opening offers from the European Union and United States are insufficient.  Thus Brazil and India (who steer G20 developing country lobby) resist furthering negotiations in trade and industrial products and services until agricultural issues are given due attention.

On the other hand, the EU and US are shifting the Ministerial-level negotiations away from agriculture to NAMA and services.  As it was asserted by an individual attending the Mini-Ministerial; the EU and US are intent on turning the spotlight away from agriculture where they have defensive interests and cannot offer much, to focus attention on areas where they have offensive interests and make unreasonable demands on developing countries.

The EU and US (the main players in the negotiations) thus came under harsh criticism, in an interview for the BBC the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath described the EU´s position as “giving an inch and asking not just for a foot but a mile”.

Developing countries accuse the EU of trying to shift blame of failure of negotiations to developing countries, an accusation which is evidenced by the EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson’s assertion, following a London meeting, “I am not in the business of scaling down ambition.  If we do not deliver ambitiously on the Doha Round as a whole we risk losing or compromising Doha’s key development component.  That is not acceptable to Europe.  I have been warning for months of the dangers of restructuring our negotiations to agriculture.  We have now broadened the discussions and we should concentrate on making up lost time.”

There are strong contradictions within this statement as the demand for developing countries to open up their economies would damage or destroy Doha’s development component.

The Mini-Ministerial thus faltered upon the conflicting interests of the developed and developing nations, and highlighted the persisting power of the developed nations; within the Mini-Ministerial meeting there was a bias in numbers of attendees towards developed countries with less ministers (and therefore representation) from developing countries.

Additionally, with reference to the pressure placed upon the timetable for completing the Doha Round by the end of 2006, the US require 6 months after the agreement to bring it to Congress for vote.  In July 2007 President Bush’s authority for a ‘fast track’ approval expires and therefore the urgency for an agreement to be achieved by the end of 2006 rests upon the timetable of the US.

(A summary of articles published in the SUNS by Martin Khor (8th and 9th November 2005) and Yahoo! Asian News by Flor Bambao (10th November 2005))