[WTO Talks Dora Round] ministers to attempt to revive talks

from Business Week

WTO members keep setting deadlines in a bid to conclude a binding trade liberalization pact by the end of this year.

And they keep missing them.

With time running out for the World Trade Organization, key ministers meet in London this weekend to see if this time it might be different and countries will finally make the tough decisions on reducing their tariffs and subsidies.

"There is a need for them to progress here," WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell says. "It's a very important meeting."

But just six weeks before another self-imposed deadline for a framework agreement on liberalizing global commerce, the chances of a breakthrough look slim.

Brazil's president said last week his country was unprepared to "substantially" reduce its tariffs on foreign manufactured goods. The United States says it will not offer further cuts to its farm subsidies, and the EU insists it will only make concessions if others do.

"Nothing has changed after two years of negotiations," says David Woods, director of the Geneva-based World Trade Agenda Consultants. "Deep down everybody knows this is in serious danger of going belly up."

The Doha round of trade talks, named for the Qatari capital where it was launched in 2001, sets out to boost the global economy and lift millions worldwide out of poverty by lowering trade barriers across all sectors -- with particular emphasis on developing countries.

But the round is already two years behind schedule and negotiators have been at an impasse for months, with rich countries reluctant to further open up their farm markets and developing nations refusing to lower barriers to trade in services and industrial goods until they see what they term "real cuts" by the 25-nation EU, Japan, the United States and others.

A 2003 meeting in Cancun collapsed in acrimony and December's Hong Kong summit produced only very minor agreements, putting off the difficult decisions until another meeting at the end of April, when the WTO's 149 members are supposed to reach detailed agreements on how to liberalize their markets.

"Progress does not depend on unilateral moves by particular players, but on what everyone can put into the mix together," said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, who is hosting the two-day London meeting which kicks off Friday. "I have a fairly good idea of where Europe can end up eventually but moving the EU will really depend not just on our red lines but the overall balance."

Developing countries, for whom agriculture is particularly sensitive and economically vital, claim previous free trade accords were unfair and say the Doha round should redress an imbalance in global commerce laws by focusing on their needs.

But the London meeting -- which ministers from Australia, Brazil, India, Japan and the United States will also attend -- will focus on industrial goods and services negotiations in addition to farm trade, and will "try and narrow some differences between the key players," Mandelson said in a statement.

Some campaign groups are already writing off the gathering, accusing rich nations of twisting the mandate of the round to fit their needs and not those of developing countries.

"At some point, you have to say the emperor's got no clothes and call the bluff of the rich countries," says Amy Barry, spokeswoman for international aid agency Oxfam. "It's the same tactic every time."

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, however, has recently sounded out a more positive note, saying countries now seem to realize they have to move on critical issues as the April deadline looms.

But even so, positions have not converged in recent weeks and there is little cause for optimism, Woods says.

"Everybody is now saying there needs to be movement, but nobody is really willing to make any difficult decisions," Woods says. "If the ministers can compromise on even some very minor steps, that would be a positive result at this point."

Without progress in London to lay the groundwork for April, the WTO could come up short of the hoped-for agreement, warned Canada's Ambassador Don Stephenson, who chairs the WTO's negotiating committee on industrial goods.

And there have been so many delays that some observers believe the whole Doha round could be in jeopardy because of the July 2007 expiration of the U.S. "fast-track" authority, which allows U.S. Congress to either accept or reject international deals as a whole, without being able to pick them apart line by line.

"You reach a point where you run out of rope," WTO's Rockwell says. "Nobody seems to believe that we can go much beyond the end of this year to complete the negotiations."

Campaigners fear that negotiators are already settling for a second-best agreement, knowing any treaty demanding major concessions from the United States would have far more problems getting through Congress once fast-track expires.

"The chance of a deal now being reached that looks anything like it was first envisioned in 2001 is next to nothing," Barry said.