The Hindu Business Line : An elusive deal

It now seems almost certain that the June 15 `deadline' for agreement on the modalities in the ongoing Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations is beyond the reach of the international community which in essence, could mean sounding the death knell of the Doha Development Agenda. This would be an unwanted development for the rich and poor economies alike because of the central place of liberalised global trade in the ongoing effort to improve the general economic condition of mankind.

The problem is that though abundant public support has been given to this view by all members of the World Trade Organisation, when it comes down to brasstacks — the higgling and haggling on such specific issues as domestic farm support and subsidies and market access for farm and industrial products — none of the major players is prepared to concede an inch even if such a stand, as everyone knows, may eventually lead to a weakening of the WTO itself. More specifically, just three weeks are left within which effective progress must be made on the agricultural and non-agriculture market access (NAMA) issues vis-à-vis the Doha Round if the WTO itself is to emerge unscathed from the ongoing, debilitating negotiation process. Ordinarily, one would have expected from the governments concerned a flurry of serious activity towards cobbling together some sort of an agreement within this period even if such an accord did not meet their minimum demands. The revealing aspect of the negotiations is that there is as yet no sign of such a movement at the political level, the latest `offer' made by Brussels on a fresh reduction on farm tariffs falling between the Scylla of the demands of its major trading partners, notably Washington, and the Charybis of the EU members, in particular France. In fact, to some people it is no offer at all because of the appended condition of reciprocity, which reduces the step to being just one more bargaining ploy instead of an initiative that could once again kickstart the moribund negotiating process.

It is disconcerting to see how the different groups in Geneva — which has become the focus of the negotiations after Hong Kong — are trying to put technicalities together in a supreme effort to meet the `deadline' (the NAMA talks are one example) though everyone knows that without a concerted political push to overcome the well-delineated hurdles the talks will get nowhere. As of now there are no signs of this decisive political input, all the politicians who matter being unable, or unwilling, to take the lead and ask their respective political constituents to make a small sacrifice for the greater good of more rapid growth.