Posted on 12-9-2003
A
Shaky Start
(See also PTV here at www.pl.net)
Larry Elliott and Charlotte Denny outline the main developments
at the first day of the World Trade Organisation summit in Cancun,
Mexico.
September 11, 2003, The
Guardian
The suicide yesterday of a South Korean protester during violent
clashes at the barricades protecting the WTO meeting in Cancun
cast a long shadow over the start of five days of trade talks.
In what friends called a ceremonial act, Lee Kyung-Hae, a farmer
in his 50s, stabbed himself in the chest to show his anger at
the trade liberalisation policies of the World Trade Organisation.His
death dashed the hopes of the Mexican organisers that the heavily
defended security zone around the conference centre in the Caribbean
resort town would prevent a repetition of the angry clashes
between police and demonstrators that marked the Seattle WTO
meeting in December 1999.
Inside the conference centre, talks also got off to a slow start
with disagreements on virtually every issue on the agenda. In
the key area of agriculture, developing countries laid down
a challenge to the European Union and the United States, who
favour only modest changes to their lavish system of farm subsidies.Supachai
Panitchpakdi, the WTO's director general, was hopeful last night
that a deal to help cotton growers in four impoverished West
African countries - Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Chad - would
show the developing world that the talks could provide real
benefits for poor farmers.But with the developing countries
taking a tough line on agriculture and the EU warning that the
lack of a global agreement on investment and competition was
a "potential deal breaker", Dr Supachai warned negotiators
that they could not afford to leave Cancun empty handed. "We
should learn from the past and face the reality that we cannot
keep postponing decisions," he said.
The WTO is keen to see real discussions begin today in all five
of the areas covered by the round of talks launched almost two
years ago in Doha. These are agriculture, market access for
industrial products, special and differential treatment for
poor countries, new negotiations on global investment and competition
rules, and a group of miscellaneous issues.In reality, most
of the 146 countries represented in Cancun will still be jockeying
for position today, with negotiators only likely to get down
to the nitty-gritty in a last flurry over the weekend. Privately,
some delegates are already preparing for the talks to overrun
their deadline for completion on January 1 2005, with some talk
of another ministerial meeting in six months time. Little progress
has been made in the talks since Doha in November 2001, and
with developing countries in a militant mood, prospects of a
significant breakthrough this week are thought to be slim. Britain's
delegation in Mexico said last night that Cancun would be a
success if it established a framework for talks back at the
WTO's Geneva headquarters over the next 15 months.
An added complication, however, is the prospect next year of
elections in the United States and India, which will almost
certainly limit the room for concessions by both the world's
biggest economy and one of the leading countries in the developing
world.
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