Flurry of talks on agenda for WTO round

Date: 06/05/1999

By Simon Taylor

EU TRADE ministers will meet in Berlin next week to discuss a common agenda for the forthcoming round of World Trade Organisation talks which is due to kick off in Seattle in November.

The meeting is just one of a series of events planned for the next two months at which the WTO's 134 members will try to whittle down the lengthy wish-list of areas for liberalisation to focus on those where there is enough consensus to achieve results within a reasonable time frame.

Trade officials say the agenda for the new round will be thrashed out at a 'quad' meeting of the world's four biggest trading powers, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ministerial gathering in Paris and a Friends of the Round meeting in Budapest.

While there are still significant gaps between the positions of the biggest players, all parties agree on the need to set an agenda which can deliver significant liberalisation quickly.

Acting Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan's position has been clear from the outset. He favours a comprehensive round which would take in as many areas as possible without jeopardising the chances of a substantial deal within three years.

European Commission officials believe there is growing support in key developing countries for a comprehensive round, after initial scepticism about the idea. One source close to Brittan said that the Acting Commissioner had received encouraging reactions on a recent visit to Pakistan and Indonesia.

Commission trade experts also claim they are making progress in overcoming Washington's scepticism about dealing with investment and competition issues in Geneva.

" The US is beginning to see ways in which investment rules could work within the WTO," said one official. He claimed Washington now realised that the broad membership of the WTO, which includes both industrialised and developing countries, required a different approach from that used to try to get members of the OECD élite to sign up to the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

But US officials stress Washington is taking a different approach, focusing on areas where a quick deal is possible. "We say, let's see which issues are ripe for consensus and which we can define clearly enough to get agreement in three years," said one, adding that the US remained sceptical about what the WTO could achieve on investment and competition.

Meanwhile, the EU remains lukewarm about US plans to include a commitment to abolish tariffs in nine sectors - including fisheries and timber - which the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries have agreed on.

Union officials say they could only agree to the tariff reductions proposed by APEC if they were part of a wider package.