Helga Flores Trejo writes:
Today in the afternoon, a revised draft declaration was distributed by the WTO Secretariate to all member states. To listen to the first reactions of developing countries, I rushed through the police controls, blockades and crowds all around the Convention Center. Since this afternoon demonstrations have been going through out the streets of the Wan Chai district (where the convention center is located), making access and movement around it rather dificult. Nevertheless, press briefings continued inside the conference venue. Although when I arrived there more people were gathered around the TV screens watching the violent events going on at the same time not too far away than they were inside the briefing rooms.
Shortly after 5.00PM the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, the Trade Minister of India and Representatives of Mexico, Argentina and Zimbabwe steped into the room. Once again, the composition of the group was a statement in itself. As Celso Amorim, Brazil’s Foreign Minister said: “This confirms the unity of the G20”. In his opinion, the G20 has shown again and again that they are a force to be reckon with and will remain like that. Although the group did not want to go into details until having been able to study the draft carefully. Brazil’s Foreign Minister said in a first reaction that “given the low expectations for Hong Kong…” there was “modest progress in some cases.. but much below of what we expected”. But the fact that no final date had been agreed on when all export subsidies would end was “a matter of disappointment”. All representatives showed their frustration with the lack of agreement on a date, as Kamal Nath, the Indian Trade Minister said “this was the most explizit, most unambigous and easiest” demand. Nevertheless the developed countries could not yet bring themselves to accept it.
Furthermore in Kamal Nath’s opinion the draft had serious flaws and he hoped that in “the next 20 hours these flaws will be corrected”.
When asked where exactly he saw the steps forward, Brazil’s Foreign Minister said that “only microsteps” were achieved. In his opinion an important achievement was the aknowledgement that advancement in NAMA should be in proportion to the progress on agriculture and taking into account the development character of the Doha Round. Even if not operational this principle of linking both issues would be a useful guiding principle.
Whether the draft will be agreed on is still an open question, but even then the change would be minimal. The small expectations on this Ministerial were best summarized by Celso Amorim, when he concluded: The meeting would maybe “not be a success but at least useful”.
Helga Flores Trejo is Executive Director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
17. Dezember 2005
Helga Flores Trejo writes:
After 4 days of negotiations in Hong Kong no breakthrough is visible. While no advancement is being made in the core issues of this Doha Development Round – namely agricultural subsidies and market access into the EU and US – smaller questions have won major attention in the past three days and have dominated the press conferences at the Convention Center. Both the US and the EU are running a public relations war in trying to demonstrate who will offer more aid for the least developed countries while denouncing the other policies as detrimental for the world’s poor.
A big fight of words, letters and press briefings broke loose early this week between US Trade Representative Rob Portman and EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson over food aid. A series of ads in the Financial Times paid by United Nations’ World Food Program WFP created so far the biggest fuss here in Hong Kong. The ad shows 4 black children eating in front of a chalkboard with the words: “Don’t play with our food”. In it the WFP accuses restrictions on food donations and provocatively asks: “Will WTO’s trade negotiators take the food out of their mouths?”
In an unprecedented move Peter Mandelson, the EU Commissioner wrote in the name of all 25 EU Member States a letter published by the FT the next day describing the ad as a “cynical insult to the integrity of all World Trade Organization Members”. Press conferences and fact sheets followed, so I spent this past Wednesday going from one room to the other listening to the different positions.
So what is all this about? The EU abolished its in kind donations of food several years ago in favor of cash aid– these donations were always under the critique of development experts and NGO’s because their effect was to destroy the domestic markets (for example the meat market in South Africa that was dumped with cheap meat from Europe) and because they were seen ultimately as benefiting the North where the food was bought.
By contrast the US is by far the largest contributor of in kind food aid delivering more than 53 Million Metric Tons of food (cereals and non-cereals) to hungry people every year. But this food aid is under attack by the EU since it is seen as a hidden support to the US farmers. The EU is advocating not to “restricting humanitarian aid” as Mandelson argues – but to convert it in untied cash contributions to those countries in need. The advantages: products could be purchase in the region helping the local economy and producers.
The ad in the FT while signed by the UN World Food Program was seen by many in the EU as an unfair attack to the benefit of the US interests and as driven by the invested interests of the UN Agencies. This seems to have motivated Mandelson that managed to gather within a couple of hours the support of all 25 EU Member States for his Letter to the Editor. That letter in turn was followed by a press conference of USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios on Wednesday at noon. There Natsios went so far as to denounce the EU goal of converting all food aid into cash as “irresponsible” in his opinion such a move would costs lives.
While the arguments of the EU have large support among development experts the over the top reaction of Mandelson appears rather to be a distraction from the main questions at stake in Hong Kong: Will the developed countries open their markets for agricultural products and end their unfair subsidies and tariffs?
While the public relations efforts on all sides continue and we all can witness the show during the endless press briefings the answer to this question seems rather bleak.
Helga Flores Trejo is Executive Director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.
16. Dezember 2005
