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WTO Summit 2005

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Published 19 January 2006 - Updated 04 August 2006
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Doha round
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After six arduous days of negotiations, the 149 World Trade Organisation members have agreed a compromise declaration, but many issues remain unresolved.

The deal that the members scraped together came after last-minute backing for a compromise text by developing countries headed by Brazil and India. Its main provisions are:

Farm subsidies: the EU agreed to eliminate farm export subsidies by 2013. Developing nations and the US had pushed for the scrapping of subsidies by 2010 but the EU would only agree to make 'substantial reductions' by this date.

Development aid: an aid package for the least developed counties was agreed. Restrictions on imports of goods from the 50 least developed nations are to be lifted and technical aid to these countries is to be increased.

Cotton: the US will hold talks with African nations on cuts in cotton subsidies. However, it would not promise to cut subsidies to its own cotton farmers, the factor which, according to the ACP countries is most damaging to them, nor would it agree to scrap tariffs on textiles from Bangladesh and Cambodia.

However, the deal has left a great deal out. No real agreement was reached on industrial goods, services or non-agricultural market access. Further talks will be held in 2006.

Positions: 

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said the deal had got the Doha round "back on track".

EU Commissioners Mandelson and Fischer Boel called the agreement "a genuine advance for the agriculture negotiations and for the development goals of the Doha round". In their view "Europe made it happen" and in doing so had received equivalent commitments from others for similar subsidy reform.

However, NGOs and aid charities were far from enthusiastic about the deal. A spokesman for the development group CIDSE (International Co-operation for Development and Solidarity) said, "The slow pace of progress puts into question the credibility of the WTO members to really change current international trade policy and deliver trade justice for people in poverty in developing countries."

Friends of the Earth called the deal a "dangerous" one that will "further threaten the global environment and the livelihoods of the world's poorest people." "The WTO’s agenda driven by the EU, the US and their corporations override people’s needs and environmental concerns," said Alexandra Wandel, trade campaigner of Friends of the Earth Europe.

Oxfam was highly critical of the deal, calling it "disappointing" on cotton, with "minimal progress on agriculture". 

Next steps: 
  • Further talks will be held with a proposed date of 30 April 2006 for reaching a full draft declaration.
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Background: 

Amid angry scenes of rioting, which saw up to a thousand protestors arrested, WTO ministers did in the end manage to hammer out a partial deal in Hong Kong. On Sunday 18 December, a declaration was formulated which some say takes a step forward, but which is dismissed by others as merely postponing the hard questions to later talks.

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