Speech Lamy op ministeriële OESO-bijeenkomst over WTO-onderhandelingen (en)

Pascal Lamy

European Commissioner for Trade

«The WTO volcano smoking again»

Trade negotiations are like volcanoes: there are three phases they can be sleeping smoking or erupting

After a period of relative calm - with only some underground activity - the WTO volcano is "smoking" again, and the smoke is pretty dense;

What do I mean? concrete progress is being made to narrow the differences; Mood is positive and constructive

Clearly a lot of technical work still needs to be done and we should not underestimate the task but the interventions this morning clearly show a desire from all present to work hard, move and make compromises so that by July we can complete 50% of the Doha Agenda. We will have an opportunity to discuss in more detail this afternoon at a meeting of WTO trade ministers

Where is the EU on this one?

Franz and myself thought last week it was important to give a clear signal of our will to contribute to move the talks forward; hence the letter we sent to all trade Ministers; not sure I can say this created an earthquake but it was sufficient to shake the mood and create a sense of urgency

Where are we now: let me briefly start with agriculture Franz will go into the details now; I think we have a visible architecture for export subsidies and domestic support whereas on market access we are only at the "design stage"; The different designs which where on the table have been shot at and there is no ownership of this at the moment. We need to be ready to look at other options. The EU is open to look at other options. We are ready to do so - provided all our interests are addressed. A "composite formula" addressing offensive interests but also covering sensitivities is the way forward

Industrial tariffs: very important for us and for the rest of the WTO membership; trade in industrial products over 80% of world trade in goods. We have to be ambitious here. The wording of any agreement must not create loopholes which mean its effectiveness is reduced

Services: they have to remain in the July picture. For us, but also for developing countries who's interest in mode 4 (temporary movement of professionals) is growing

On Singapore Issues, the picture is becoming clearer; emerging consensus on Trade Facilitation - there is clearly work to do between now and July on the precise modalities. This is obviously now the only one of the SIs on the front burner. We regret this but have to be lucid at this stage in order to move forward.

Finally on development, the weakest economies need clear "reassurances" that the price they need to pay in this Round is extremely modest. We need to give this message now, and not at the end of the negotiation - this will make things clearer and easier. This does not mean that SDT and Implementation should be disregarded, and I know these are very important issues for the G20. But the weakest economies should receive a very clear signal in July.

We have a lot of hard work in front of us; we will continue to move these talks forward in the same spirit we have done so far: open and constructive and we are happy that others have also signalled their willingness to move