A ninth Ministerial Conference of the WTO begins this Tuesday, Dec. 3 in Bali (Indonesia), as yet another attempt to reach the Doha Round, launched in Qatar in 2001. Significant mobilization of civil society, especially in Cancun in 2003, disagreements occurred between the member countries, including agriculture, have so far limited further expansion of free trade policies and investment in WTO.
The new Director General of the WTO, Roberto Azevedo Brazil, had set a goal to reach Bali with a proposed key agreement in hand that ministers of the 159 member countries would have had to sign. After final negotiations in Geneva last week, he had to acknowledge that no agreement had been reached on all texts in preparation on ” trade facilitation “,” agriculture “and” development ” and it was now ministers ” to decide what will be the future of all issues on the table, and also what will be the future of the WTO . “
After the announcement of the failure of the Geneva negotiations, observers fear that the Director of the WTO and countries that have the most to gain from any agreement, adopt a strategy to Bali ” take it or leave it ” at the expense of those who have the most to lose. Northern countries argue that agreement on trade facilitation, to simplify customs procedures could be reduced by 10% the cost of trade. Including liberalization requirements and ease of access to markets, measures of ” trade facilitation “would be extremely costly to implement for the” developing countries “and would benefit mainly multinational companies, without the industrialized countries provide technical and financial assistance for their implementation.
Moreover, the sticking point of the negotiations is agriculture. While the United States and the European Union support their agriculture with public subsidies of a respective $ 130 billion and € 79 billion per year, they refuse that developing countries, such as the India can do the same with a view to ensure ” food security . ” Thus, the North oppose a proposal from the G33, a group of 46 countries ” developing “to enable them to support farmers and agriculture, reduce the risk of famine and achieve their Millennium Development Goals in under power.
Negotiations have moved around a ” peace clause “that would commit countries not continue before the Organization Settlement of Disputes (DSB) of the WTO on these issues. For poor countries, such a compromise would be acceptable if the clause was valid as long as the WTO rules are changed in a way that is more favorable. The North and the Director of the WTO do not want to hear about it and suggested that this clause is valid only four years of limited application and without any obligation on a permanent modification of WTO rules.
The network of civil society Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS), including Attac France is a member, issued a letter requiring governments to reject a ” peace clause “limited in time and they are ” permanent solutions that allow poor countries to implement food security policies. “ If such proposals limited but legitimate and necessary, should not see the light, it demonstrated once again that the WTO and the regime of free trade and investment that generated directly or indirectly, through tens or bilateral agreements under negotiation are the only service multinationals and neoliberal agenda which condemns the small farmers, food economies and the survival of the poorest populations.
With the network # EndWTO , and within multiple activities of social and peasant movements that will take place in Bali and around the world, we call to stop the expansion policy of free trade and investment liberalization. Instead, our presence in Bali and our mobilization against free trade agreements signed under negotiation (EU-US, EU-Canada etc..) And being ratified (EU-Peru-Colombia) we call to strengthen the global movement demanding that these policies should be dismantled in favor of fair and democratic trade rules, focusing on the rights of human beings and nature.
