Archive - Jul 2005 - Article

The European Commission's DG Trade has finally replied to questions raised by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) about the privileged access and influence of industry lobby groups like the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) and the European Services Forum (ESF).

Following the World Trade Organization (WTO) Mini-Ministerial Meeting in Dalian, China earlier this month, Ambassador Alejandro Jara, Chairman of the WTO Council for Trade in Services Special Session, issued a report on the state of play in the Doha Round services negotiations.

The passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in the U.S. House of Representatives late last night signals a major setback for U.S. sugar farmers and a damaging blow to Central American farmers

The WTO General Council started its meeting today in an atmosphere of anti-climax as well as general gloom that its long-touted objective of coming up with 'first approximations' of modalities on key issues to give a boost to the preparations for the Hongkong Ministerial in December would not be fulfilled.

There has been no progress in the agriculture talks over the past days, but it is not a crisis

the chair of the agriculture negotiationsreported that there had been negotiations among a small group of countries in thepast week.

It dealt with eight regular items today, including TRIPS andhealth, special and dfiierential treatment, small economies,implementation issues, budget committee.

On the eve of the WTO General Council meeting (which starts on 27 July), there does not appear to be any last minute breakthroughs on the main issues of agriculture or non-agricultural market access (NAMA).

Bilateral and plurilateral meetings on fisheries and antidumping (AD) dominated the work of the 11-15 July session of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Negotiating Group on Rules

Negotiations on agriculture in the World Trade Organisation have been taking place in a small group involving 14 WTO member countries (known as the extended FIPs, five interested parties)