EU Trade Foreign Affairs Council (Post-Council Statement)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
I represented the UK at the trade session of the above Foreign Affairs Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on 14 December.
Trade Ministers met immediately before the eighth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference to take a number of decisions related to the conference, notably the accessions of Russia and Samoa to the WTO and the least developed countries services waiver, as well as to approve the mandates for deep and comprehensive free trade agreements (DCFTAs) with Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia.
The main items for discussion were the position to be taken by the European Union on the Doha development agenda (DDA), the future path of the WTO and the negotiations on the revision to the Government procurement agreement (GPA). There was broad agreement on the former, in particular the importance of messages on resisting protectionism, on strengthening the WTO and maintaining its relevance for tackling 21st century issues, and on the need for an active negotiating agenda in order to deliver “early harvests” of those areas that were most advanced in the DDA such as trade facilitation.
The UK, supported by the majority of member states, called for the EU to conclude the 10-year long process of reviewing the Government procurement agreement. I argued that a successful deal would pave the way for the opening of negotiations with China on its possible future accession to the GPA. I also stressed the value of obtaining a business-friendly deal at such a critical moment for the EU and the WTO.
Subsequent to the trade FAC, I represented the UK at the World Trade Organisation’s eighth ministerial conference (MC8) in Geneva from 15 to 17 December.
The conference agreed to Russia’s accession to the WTO after an 18-year negotiation. Agreement was also given to accession by Samoa and Montenegro. All will become members of the WTO during 2012 when domestic ratification is complete. With the approval of the accession of Vanuatu earlier this year, this will take the WTO’s membership from 153 to 157. Samoa and Vanuatu are the first least developed countries (LDCs) to join since 2004.
The conference also agreed a waiver from WTO rules to allow preferential market access to LDC providers of services, extended the deadline for LDCs to bring in rules to protect intellectual property, and agreed provisions aimed at speeding up LDCs’ membership negotiations. Members also reaffirmed their commitment to working towards the implementation of promises on duty free quota free access (DFQF) and cotton, first made at MC6 in Hong Kong in 2005.
Finally, the 42 signatories to the Government procurement agreement (a plurilateral agreement within the WTO framework allowing access to each others’ procurement market) agreed, after 10 years of negotiation, a revision to the Agreement. The deal expanded market access within the signatories, including, for the EU, access to €100 billion-worth of PFI contracts related to reconstruction in Japan.
On the Doha development agenda negotiations the agreed chair’s summary noted that negotiations were at an “impasse”, that members had “significantly different perspectives”, and that it was
“unlikely that all elements could be concluded simultaneously in the near future.”
Despite this, Ministers remained committed to further work, to the need
“to more fully explore different negotiating approaches”,
and to advancing negotiations to allow
“Members to reach provisional or definitive agreements based on consensus earlier than the full conclusion of the single undertaking”
(i.e. “early harvests”).
Finally, the conference agreed to
“intensify their efforts to look into ways that may allow Members to overcome the most critical and fundamental stalemates in the areas where multilateral convergence has proven to be especially challenging”.