[PEN-L:36253] WTO-deadlock approaching?

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

WTO farm talks near deadlock

Charlotte Denny
Saturday March 29, 2003
The Guardian

The World Trade Organisation was last night facing the prospect of a
repeat of its disastrous Seattle meeting, after talks on agreeing a
framework for cutting farm subsidies ended in deadlock.

Stuart Harbinson, who chairs the farm talks, admitted yesterday that he
had abandoned the end of March deadline for drafting the agreement after
failing to close the divisions between the main trading powers.

"The situation we are now in is very serious," Mr Harbinson told a meeting
of envoys to the 145-member trade body.

He had drafted an ambitious plan which would have phased out export
subsidies over the next 10 years and cut tariffs steeply, but met fierce
opposition from Japan and the European Union. US chief negotiator Allen
Johnson this week claimed the problems were caused by "the European
Union's inability to engage and Japan's unwillingness to engage".

Some trade analysts have accused Mr Harbinson of letting the US off the
hook by ignoring the lavish subsidies it gives its own farmers.

Monday's deadline is the third that negotiators at the WTO's Geneva
headquarters have missed since talks began 14 months ago. Analysts fear
that the September meeting of trade ministers in Cancun, Mexico, could
turn into a repeat of the WTO's meeting in Seattle three years ago, when
negotiations collapsed amid bitter recriminations as protesters battled
police in the streets outside.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, the WTO's director general, warned last month that
agriculture was one of two critical issues which had to be agreed before
September to prevent the Cancun meeting degenerating into a stalemate.

Agriculture is seen as a test of the west's claims that the new round of
global trade talks will cut world poverty. Aid agencies said rich
countries had failed to deliver on the promises they made at the launch of
the talks in Doha.

"It sets the scene for a very rancorous meeting in Cancun," said Duncan
Green, a policy analyst at Catholic aid agency Cafod. "These deadlines
were supposed to be about building confidence for developing countries in
the round, and it has in fact achieved the opposite. Developing countries
are feeling let down and angry."