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G. Srinivasan

On agriculture, in which India expressed its displeasure over the EU-US joint proposals pre-Cancun, the strategy paper of the EU says the EU has adjusted its position just in the course of one year from its offer of substantial cuts in the amber box to the acceptance of disciplines over the blue box.

New Delhi , Nov. 28

AS the mid-December, 2003 deadline for the WTO General Council draws closer, the European Union (EU) has come out with a strategy paper aimed at contributing to the re-launch of the Doha talks, after they had broken down in Cancun Ministerial in September, 2003.

The focal point of the paper, adopted by the European Commission in Brussels on Thursday, reiterates the EU's fundamental objectives, encompassing a clear preference for a multilateral trade system, a strong rules-making component alongside market access and the need to ensure that the negotiations do deliver a development round.

Commenting on the strategy paper which was sent to the European Council and Parliament, the EU Trade Commissioner Mr Pascal Lamy said: "The clear lesson of Cancun is that no single player or group of players can deliver the Round... While we can and are ready to make further adjustments in the EU position, what we need is a Round in which all contribute and make adjustments."

For India which opposed the very introduction of Singapore issues to the WTO negotiations other than seeking clarifications on them, the EU said for once that its bid for creating rules on competition, transparency in public procurement, investment and trade facilitation would include flexibility in the form of considering each issue on its own merits rather than treating them as part of the Doha package. "This opens the door to the possibility to exclude any one or all of the issues from the single undertaking and to pursue negotiations among those (many) members willing to do so, still within the WTO but not formally linked to the other issues of the Doha Development Agenda." This approach, EU understands, would permit the WTO to develop rules on these issues while accepting the reality that not all WTO members are ready to take this step now.

On agriculture, in which India expressed its displeasure over the EU-US joint proposals pre-Cancun, the strategy paper of the EU recalls the number of times the EU has adjusted its position just in the course of one year— from its offer of substantial cuts in the amber box— the most trade-distorting support— to the acceptance of disciplines over the blue box. But in other areas, EU flexibility has not been picked up by others. It singled out the case of market access where others should pick up the ball in providing duty-free and quota-free access for least developed countries to their markets.

On cotton, as part of the agriculture negotiations, the EU said a substantial reduction of the most trade-distorting support and the elimination of export support, where the Commission would include among products of export interest to developing countries in the list for which EU export subsidies would be eliminated. Besides, aid and development measures should be pursued in parallel in the relevant international organisations to bolster modernisation and restructuring of the cotton sector in least developed countries.

On industrial tariffs, the proposals for decreasing tariffs on offer at Cancun fell short of those needed to deliver on the Doha mandate: the exceptions and exclusions from tariff reductions (as sought by New Delhi and other developing countries) would have led to a very low level of engagement.

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