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Media Advisory For immediate release
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Media Advisory For immediate release
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WTO deal threatens environment, development :
European Chief Trade negotiator Lamy and his US counterpart Zoellick pretend drastic market opening in non-agricultural goods (known as 'NAMA') and services in developing countries, making it a dangerous deal that developing countries should resist. And the chair of the WTO General Council Oshima says that he will not accept changes to this new text. Any changes will only be "optical" - ie. non-substantive. On NAMA, Friends of the Earth believes that the African countries and other WTO Members should not be forced to agree to the new WTO draft which includes a statement that effectively adopts a negotiating framework - called Annex B - that is inequitable and harmful to sustainable development. Under current NAMA proposals, developing countries risk losing their ability to use national policies to protect their environment and promote development. If adopted, WTO negotiations could further deepen the deindustrialisation crisis and accelerate unemployment and poverty. This would force them to rely more heavily on unsustainable and harmful exports of natural resources. The current text proposes to include effectively all natural resources for either partial or complete liberalisation. (2) The so called concessions by the EU and US in the agricultural negotiations (in annex A of the new draft) turn out to be empty promises: The commitment to eliminate export subsidies credits is missing any substance as no end date is mentioned in the new text. On domestic support, the text clearly opens the door for the EU and US to almost maintain their entire level of current subsidies and keep on dumping.On services in annex C the need to ensure high quality offers in the next phase of GATS negotiations and the importance of achieving higher levels of liberalisation with no a priori exclusion of any service sector is emphasised. This puts undue pressure on developing countries to open up service sectors. It also poses a threat to their sovereignty and agency in regulating basic services in the pursuit of social and development goals. It ignores civil society calls to exempt from GATS negotiations essential services, such as education, water, health, energy, access to which are important for human development and women's empowerment Friend of the Earth also criticized the extremely secretive and closed process used for negotiations in Geneva, including the exclusion of many country negotiators from key negotiating sessions and the complete barring of non-governmental organizations from the negotiating venue. Alexandra Wandel of Ffriends of the Earth said: '' The WTO process is rotten and completely undemocratic. The text needs to be rejected. It could harm people and the environment. African countries in particular seem under pressure to accept conditions that will mainly benefit the United States and the European Union.'' Contacts: In Europe In the US In Asia Contacts: (1) All you need to know about NAMA: Why NAMA threatens development and environment, available at http://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/NAMAenvironmentFINAL.pdf
Friends of the Earth
Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the
protection of the environment, |