Geneva WTO ministerial likely to be a talkfest, believe many

As the World Trade Organisation’s seventh ministerial meeting begins today (Monday) amid violence, trade ministers will focus for the first time not so much on the stalled-Doha trade negotiations but on how to strengthen the much-bruised organisation that has neglected institutional-building activities all these years, several senior trade officials said.

“When you run out of anything important, then you would start talking about institutional-building activities,” a senior trade official from an industrialised country told BS, comparing the seventh ministerial meeting to “a wet croissant”.

Geneva has already been subjected to a heavy dose of violence from anti-WTO protesters, who smashed some banks and burnt cars during the past 48 hours. The Swiss government, which had cautioned about holding this meeting due to the festering economic crisis, had to reluctantly agree to the event.

“We are going to focus on the institutional-building activities during the three-day meeting, particularly the current global economic climate and how to strengthen the WTO,” said Ambassador Mario Matus, the chair for the WTO General Council, its most powerful body. He said the seventh ministerial meeting is not about Doha negotiations, adding that ministers are free to make their comments on how the Doha project should be completed next year.

“Trade ministers will focus on four baskets of issues, covering the administration of different agreements, technical assistance, accession of new members and also the Doha Development Agenda, which is not the core issue,” said an Asian trade official.

“Indeed, it is the first time since 1999, when the Seattle ministerial meeting collapsed like a house of cards, that trade ministers will talk about institutional-building activities,” the official said, suggesting there is no appetite to focus on the Doha agenda at this juncture.

WTO ministerial meetings are mandated to be held once every two years. The first was at Singapore in 1996, which resulted in launching a study on trade and environment. The second ministerial meeting in Geneva, 1998, was an event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Gatt/WTO. And the third meeting in Seattle (1999) collapsed like a house of cards in the presence of then American President Bill Clinton, who pushed hard for labour standards in trade entry. The fourth ministerial meeting in Doha, 2001, paved the way for the launch of Doha Development Agenda negotiations.

The fifth ministerial meeting in Cancun, 2003, fell apart because of unbridgeable differences on the controversial Singapore issues -- investment, competition policy, government procurement and trade facilitation. The sixth ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, 2005, set new parameters on how to conclude the Doha trade negotiations.

After Hong Kong, there were no takers to convene the seventh meeting for almost four years. Finally, the Swiss government took the courage to host the meeting, with an agenda largely divorced from Doha.

In all these meetings, particularly since 1999, WTO focused all its energies and attention on a new round of trade negotiations, that finally materialised in Doha in 2001. Despite fierce opposition from several developing countries, particularly India and its late trade minister Murasoli Maran, who resisted the launch of a new round of trade negotiations on the ground that many members were unable to implement the previous Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, the industrialised countries, led by two well-known actors in the global trading regime -- Pascal Lamy who was then the EU trade commissioner and Robert B Zoellick -- forced the Doha trade negotiations.

After eight years, the Doha talks are paralysed because the United States is not happy with what it is getting for its agriculture, and industrial producers and others are unhappy that the real “developmental” content has been nearly eroded because of demands made by the sole superpower.

Against this backdrop, the seventh ministerial meeting is going to be a “talk-fest” which will have lot of talking and some “finger-pointing” but without any concrete results on how to prepare for the future without Doha, trade officials said.