Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, seems to be a man in a hurry. He says the next few weeks will be crucial for the languishing Doha trade negotiations. The Doha Round was initially scheduled to be concluded before 2005. It has already missed many deadlines.
Lamy has been issuing urgent calls to close the negotiations since he took office two years ago. But he must be realistic about what is possible at a time when the major players – the United States and the European Union – have shown few signs of movement from their entrenched positions in agriculture.
It is well known that the Doha Round is mandated to correct historical distortions in the global farm trade and impart a developmental dimension in which developing countries gain access to the rich country markets in areas of industrial products and services.
So far, the United States, which currently spends over US $ 10 billion for its trade-distorting farm subsidies, has been unwilling to bring it down to US $ 13 billion as suggested by the chair for Doha agriculture negotiations.
Similarly, the EU has created a smoke screen around what it would do with regard to providing ambitious market access for farm products from the developing countries who are part of the G-20 coalition. The two trans-Atlantic trade partners have ganged up to squeeze the developing countries in the arena of market opening for industrial products.
As regards India’s core concerns in agriculture, especially the livelihood and subsistence farming needs of millions of farmers, there is no clarity yet on the level of protection. The recent telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the US President George W Bush has further clouded India’s negotiating stance at Geneva.
New Delhi will find it difficult to sell the Doha package back home when it is unable to secure commensurate gains in safeguarding its vital interests in agriculture, short-term movement of its IT services providers, and protecting its genetic resources.
Disturbingly, the terms of the final grand bargain between agriculture and industrial products are heavily altered. For some inexplicable reason, Lamy chose to genuflect to the demands made by Washington and Brussels while turning a deaf ear to other developmental issues.
In fact, there is a pronounced developmental-deficit in the commitments that are being constructed. In a nutshell, the Doha talks might linger on and Lamy’s latest statement might do little to take it forward.
