WTO Muddles?Its Way?Towards?Multilateralising Possible G4 Deal?

18 March, Geneva. As G4 (US, EU, Brazil and India) negotiations take the front seat at the WTO, leaving the other members completely clueless on the specifics of their negotiations, one trade insider in Geneva commented,

'There is alot of unrest amongst the WTO members because they don't know what is going on'. He said that 'Even within the WTO Secretariat, there is unease that the institution is going back to the days of the GATT and the QUAD (where the QUAD called the shots). There is a different QUAD today, but it is still the QUAD. At that time, there was alot of information (about what the QUAD was negotiating amongst themselves) floating around outside (in the media, to the Secretariat and other Members). This time, they seem to have made a decision not to share this information'.

He said that 'Even the Chairs don't know what is going on and where things are... Lamy is not as well informed at this point as he was 3-4 months ago', referring to the fact that the Chairs and Lamy had not been invited to the G4 meetings that took place in London and elsewhere.

Pascal Lamy has not been driving the G4 process, and according to the source, 'He is getting quite impatient because he has to think about getting Ministers to Geneva.'

What is the Lamy Strategy?

Lamy has decided that getting a small group of Ministers to Geneva (20-30 or so) is much more effective in terms of achieving his aims than a full-fledged Ministerial. The plan is to host a mini-Ministerial similar to the one that birthed the July Framework in 2004. He would like to convene one before the summer break (The WTO closes in August). He has thus been pushing the G4 to come up with their breakthrough package as quickly as possible. Once there is something concrete from the G4, he will convene a Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) meeting in Geneva to begin the process of 'multilateralising' this G4 package. Presumably, the TNC meeting will give the mandate to the Chairs to start changing the texts in accordance to negotiations which have been taking place. (ie G4 negotiations). How exactly they will spin it so that the Membership accepts this, remains a mystery.

New Zealand Ambassador and Agriculture Chair, Crawford Falconer has already said that he will start revising his reference papers after the Easter break (around the 10th of April). Privately, Members have already questioned how he will go about doing this, and whether he will deliver a G4 text through his new reference papers.

Once some texts are out and 'multilateral' meetings are taking place around these, in theory, the mini-Ministerial can be convened.

The WTO Secretariat is not planning the