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EU endorses Indian stand on contentious WTO issues

Ranvir Nayar in Brussels

The European Union has strongly endorsed India's contention that implementation issues remain some of the biggest hurdles to the launching of the new round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.

Morgen Peters Carl, director general of trade at the European Commission, told a review meeting of the WTO in Geneva that implementation was a cardinal principle and touchstone of the organisation's ability to advance the interests of several developing countries.

The new round of WTO talks are to be launched at the Doha ministerial meeting in November.

"We need to intensify out efforts in order to ensure early decisions on some issues. Each step counts and we must avoid postponing to Doha decisions that can be taken earlier," Carl told the gathering.

He added the WTO also needed to decide very soon in concrete terms how other outstanding questions would be resolved at Doha. He said the EC was prepared to see that all the questions, including some sensitive issues, needed to be taken up seriously during future negotiations.

The European technocrat also said the Doha declaration should include elements that are crucial for developing countries.

These include the questions of special and differential treatment for developing countries and inclusion of developing country interests like access to health, trade and medicines in all future trade negotiations.

Carl also spoke of another important issue that has been raised consistently by India and other developing countries -- the question of market access for developing country products in the developed world.

India has accused the developed world of failing to provide market access to products from developing countries by using protectionist measures like anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties.

Carl said despite the absence of any consensus on the issue, the EU was willing to include sensitive products in the negotiations and will also pursue an aggressive agenda in the ongoing negotiations on agriculture and services.

On the highly contentious issue of trade and environment, the EU official tried to walk a tightrope by highlighting the importance of the issues in the global trade negotiations on the one hand and by saying that an existing mechanism within the WTO could be a starting point for discussions on the issue.

This is exactly what India has been saying, pointing out that there already exists a committee on trade and environment within the WTO.

The committee also has a mandated agenda for discussions and the agenda covers several of the points raised by the developed world.

Carl was optimistic about the outcome of Doha saying much progress has been made towards agreeing to a defining a common agenda. He, however, suggested a climb down on the ambitions that the developed countries may have had regarding what could be achieved in the negotiations.

"Negotiations on trade and competition and trade and investment should be at a level of ambition that will allow developing countries to retain sufficient flexibilities to pursue their domestic development policies," Carl told the gathering.

Indo-Asian News Service

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