AFRICA-EUROPE FAITH AND JUSTICE NETWORK
RESEAU FOI ET JUSTICE AFRIQUE-EUROPE

174, rue Joseph II
B-1000 Bruxelles - Belgique
Tel. 32-2 234 6810 Fax 32-2 231 1413
aefjn@aefjn.org http://www.aefjn.org

AEFJN is a network of 41 catholic religious and missionary Institutes with members in Africa and Europe, promotes equitable economic relations between Africa and Europe, providing information and analysis on economical policies that affect Africa adversely and seeks to influence positively the policies of national governments and the European Union Institutions.

The Cancun Ministerial Conference of the WTO ended on Sunday 10th October without consensus on any of the items on its agenda and amidst bitter divisions over the launch of negotiations on the 4 new issues (i.e. the Singapore issues: government procurement, trade facilitation, investment and
competition policy) and over agriculture. Two days after the meeting the WTO is in confusion. Developing countries accusing the USA and the EU of intransigent behavior, the EU Commission president, R. Prodi, qualifying the WTO rules as "outdated", others accusing the chairman to have halted the Conference prematurely.

STUMBLING-BLOCKS
Negotiations before the Cancun Conference had produced a working document outlining possible progress on the different agenda points. The positions expressed in this document reflected mostly the positions of the EU and the USA, bypassing the demands of developing countries. The document contained very controversial proposals on the issues of agriculture, liberalization of the service sectors and on the "Singapore issues" (mostly on liberalization of international investment and capital flows).

Subsidies to agriculture
The working document on agriculture from the WTO Secretary General went quite further then the EU or the USA were ready to concede, as both had agreed to a common position on August 13th. Mr Fishler, Commissioner of Agriculture for the EU, spoke about the document as "crossing red lines". Even if some smaller concessions were granted for developing countries, the French minister of agriculture stated that these would be unacceptable to France.
On the other hand, the "Group of 21" (21 developing nations that are agricultural exporters, lead by China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt and Ecuador), supported by the African countries, demanded the withdrawal of subsidies from the EU and USA agricultural sector.
On the issue of the African cotton, the demand of Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Benin to eliminate the subsidies to cotton production was totally refused by the USA, while the EU (which has only 2% of the world cotton market) suggested it would support the African demands in return for support for other issues on the agenda (i.e. the Singapore Issues).

Liberalization of services
The document called for more compliance with the agreed calendar, urging that the many countries that had not yet made their offers or that had only submitted limited offers for liberalizing their service sectors, should do so. It also asked that no service sector should be a priori excluded from the liberalization process, (including the water sector!).
This position, supported by European countries, was surprisingly contrary to earlier statements of Commissioner Lamy that no country would be forced to liberalize a service sector! In the light of the growing opposition to obligatory liberalization of public services worldwide, this issue only served to antagonize opposing parties more.

Singapore Issues
The major stumbling block of Cancun was, however, the issues of investment regulation, the competition policy, market-transparency and trade facilitation, on which rich countries (especially the EU) wanted negotiations to start. In 2001 at Doha, the agreement was that no negotiations would start if members did not reach consensus on doing so. Not less then 70 countries (out of 146) notified their unwillingness to discuss the "new issues". Even then, the working document suggested starting immediate negotiations on an agreement on investments and competition. While the G-21 would have been willing to consider this if they made gains on the agricultural issue, the ACP group (among whom most least developed countries) refused this point.

Confusion in the WTO ranks
At this stage it is not clear on what basis talks will continue in Geneva. There was no "failure management" plan in place for the Conference. The statement only says that members will continue work on "areas of high level of convergence on texts". What will happen to those areas where no "high level of convergence" can be reached?

No one now believes that the Doha Round of negotiations can be concluded by 2005 as scheduled. This changes the context for several regional processes such as the EU-ACP negotiations on Regional Economic Partnership Agreements. The EU and the USA have both made strong statements about the WTO's decision-making structure, indicating that the institution has become too unwieldy to deliver results. This could lead either to their attempting to change those structures or to turn their attention increasingly to bilateral and regional efforts.

It is clear that the EU and the USA have underestimated the position of the developing countries. The strength of the G-21 group of developing nations came as a surprise. Indeed, it has emerged as a block to be reckoned with in future negotiations at the WTO. Developing countries did stand up against the USA and the EU. The ACP and the G-21 stand as legitimate, recognized blocks capable of more effective negotiation with other major blocks such as the "Quad countries" (EU, USA, Canada and Japan) and the "Crains group" (representing major cereal producers).

It is to be noted, however, that many Least Developed Countries did not join the G-21, because it essentially reflects the interests of big agricultural exporters (China, India, Brazil, Argentina) and does not support the needs of small producers.

Though the next Ministerial Meeting of the WTO is planned for 2005 in Hong Kong, marking the end of the Doha Round of Negotiations, no fixed date was set. Just an example of the disarray the failure of Cancun caused! The coming months will be important to see what the future will be…

AEFJN's CANCUN letter campaign
AEFJN had asked religious during the month of August to write their ministers of trade and Trade Commissioner Lamy to ask them to defend the rights of African countries at Cancun. Eight of our antennae took active part in the campaign. The office received copies of the letters from religious of 15 countries (5 national conferences of major superiors, the conference of superior generals of women religious, the Irish missionary union, 53 national provinces of religious), and on the eve of the Cancun Conference, Radio Vatican interviewed the office on our action.

We want to thank all who made the effort to voice our concerns. Considering that August is a time when many leadership teams are not meeting, we are pleased with the participation. Religious in Europe did speak out with a common voice, drawing the attention of our political leaders on the harm and suffering certain European policies and WTO agreements cause to African people.

Luc Coppejans, MAfr
AEFJN, Bruxelles, July 2003.