Doubts Grow About Ministerial Meeting In April on WTO Agriculture, NAMA Talks

GENEVA - An anticipated meeting of trade ministers in Geneva at the end of April aimed at pushing forward a deal for the Doha Round talks on agriculture and nonagricultural market access looks more doubtful as chances for securing a final agreement on 'modalities' in the two sectors fade, according to officials contacted by BNA April 11 and 12.

Trade diplomats said that a meeting between World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy and Geneva-based ambassadors earlier the week of April 10 revealed growing hesitation by the WTO chief in organizing a ministerial gathering due to the lack of progress in the agriculture and NAMA talks.

Whereas Lamy earlier insisted that a ministerial-level gathering was necessary to provide the political impetus to meet the end of April deadline for securing modalities, the WTO chief is now 'climbing down from his tree' on the issue, according to one diplomat, by seeking the advice of members on whether to invite ministers to Geneva.

Lamy is due to make a decision at the end of the April 17-21 workweek, basing his decision on the progress made in the next round of negotiations on agriculture and NAMA taking place in Geneva the same week. But with expectations for both meetings low, more and more diplomats believe that the ministerial talks--tentatively penciled in for the week of April 30-May 5--could be scrubbed to avoid an embarrassing failure.

One Western official said Lamy's decision to consult members reflected his own recognition that the modalities deadline would not be met, barring a major last-minute initiative by key players such as the United States, the European Union, Brazil, and India.

Road Map for Modalities

A senior Latin American official said that the ministerial talks, if they were to take place, would instead focus on preparing a road map for carrying on the modalities talks beyond April. Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, has argued that the current process has run its course and that a special summit of world leaders is needed to break the deadlock in the Doha negotiations.

WTO members agreed at the organization's Hong Kong ministerial last December to finalize a deal on modalities--including the formulas and figures for cutting tariffs on agricultural and industrial goods, and slashing farm subsidies--by the end of April, and to complete the Doha Round talks by the end of 2006.

U.S. officials earlier said that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Portman was expected to attend the Geneva ministerial talks, which were due to attract some 30-40 ministers, even though Portman has expressed doubts that the modalities deadline can be met.

Prospects for substantive movement in the NAMA talks next week appeared slim following a round of informal consultations in Geneva that revealed little narrowing of differences on key issues.

Don Stephenson, the Canadian ambassador chairing the NAMA talks, told delegations April 10 that some movement took place on issues such as the treatment of unbound tariff lines and special flexibilities for developing countries, according to officials who attended the meeting. But little progress was reported on the formula for reducing tariffs, in particular the coefficients to plug into the formula for determining the degree of cuts.

Texts Sought by Lamy

Both Stephenson and his agricultural chair counterpart, New Zealand WTO Ambassador Crawford Falconer, are under pressure from Lamy to produce texts that could serve as the basis for decisions by ministers in April/May. But Stephenson told delegates that he would only produce such texts in areas where there was sufficient convergence by the end of the April 17-21 workweek, and based on existing proposals from members.

For other areas, the Canadian ambassador said he was still deciding whether to issue texts offering various options for decisions or to just produce a report outlining the state of discussions on the issues.

In agriculture, Falconer circulated April 12 what he described as chair's reference papers on the issues of food aid, the green box of domestic support, and exporting state trading enterprises setting out structures for discussions on the three issues at next week's agriculture negotiations.

The papers fall short of the decisionmaking texts sought by Lamy, although Falconer earlier said he believed that the African/Least Developed Countries group proposal on food aid and the Group of 20 developing country alliance paper on green box support could serve as the basis for eventual ministerial decision texts.

Reference papers on export credits, special safeguard measures for developing countries, and blue box support that the chair earlier said he would prepare have yet to be circulated.

Low Expectations

Officials said that, given the continued entrenched differences at the ministerial level in both agriculture and NAMA, it is unreasonable to expect next week's meetings of technical-level officials to achieve any breakthroughs.

New problems in agriculture have also emerged among the major players. Top trade officials from the United States, the EU, and Brazil agreed at an informal ministerial gathering in Rio de Janeiro March 31-April 1 to develop simulations showing the possible impact of proposed cuts in domestic support on the spending of major farm subsidizers, analogous to the simulations already carried out for proposed cuts in agricultural and industrial tariffs.

But officials said the effort has stalled because of a feud between the United States and India. The United States wants to have results comparing the impact the proposed cuts in domestic support will have on spending, with the impact the proposed cuts will have on actual applied tariffs on farm goods. India has refused to base the comparison on applied tariffs, arguing that the comparison should instead be made with bound rates (i.e. maximum rates allowed under current WTO member schedules), which, for countries such as India, tend to be much higher than the applied rates.