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London trade talks end without breakthrough
Friends of the Earth Europe: No deal better than a bad deal
Brussels/London, 12 March 2006 - The most powerful WTO Members - the EU, the US, India, Brazil, Australia and Japan - failed this weekend in London to make significant progress in concluding the Doha Round of trade talks. (1)
Industrialised countries, including the EU, kept on pressing developing nations to agree to "ambitious" market access, which would mean opening the markets of poor nations to industrial goods and liberalizing their natural resources. This policy was strongly resisted by developing countries.
The WTO's 149 governments have set an April 30 deadline to agree on formulas that would lower tariffs on farm, industrial goods and natural resources ranging from forestry, fisheries, and mineral products to grains.
Commenting on the outcome of the London talks, Alexandra Wandel, WTO campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe in Brussels, said: "The EU continues to support an almost exclusively corporate agenda. This will push poor nations into deeper misery, worsen climate change and increase forest and biodiversity loss. The WTO talks in London ended without breakthrough. This is fine because no deal is better than a bad deal"."
"The EU must stop forcing liberalization in the forestry, fishing and mining sectors in developing countries" she demanded. "It is critical that natural resources be taken out of the trade negotiations and impact assessment measures implemented immediately."
EU Commission studies have found that trade liberalisation harms poor communities and the environment. Climate change and biodiversity loss would be a major result of liberalization (2). One EU study on forestry revealed that softer export rules in this sector would lead to more forestland loss and illegal logging, as well as increased soil erosion (3).
On another issue, Friends of the Earth Europe criticized the secretive and undemocratic nature of the London trade talks. The behind the closed door meeting excluded most WTO members, specifically many developing countries.
Contact:
Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth Europe WTO expert, Tel: +49 172 748 3953
Notes to editors:
[1] Officials participating in the London trade meeting from 10-11 March came from the US, the EU, Brazil, India, Australia, Japan, Canada, Malaysia, Egypt, Norway and Kenya - the so-called G 11. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy participated as well.
(2) Since 1999, the EU Commission's Directorate General for External Trade has been funding Sustainability Impact Assessments through an independent research team at the Manchester University, UK. See IARC, Overall project final report for sector studies, 22 April 2005, p. 3
http://www.sia-trade.org/wto/FinalOverallApr05.pdf
(3) IARC, Draft Final Report for the Forest Sector Study, 22 April 2005, pp. v-viii, 22-43
http://www.sia-trade.org/wto/ForestDraftFinalReport_v1_2_270205.pdf. As a result of the study, the EU Commission has stated on the website of the Directorate General for Trade that it will not support an extra sector by sector effort to cut tariffs to zero in natural resources. However, the EU still wants tariffs and non-tariff measures in these sectors to be drastically reduced.
4) A FoEE analysis of the WTO Hong Kong deal is available from FoEE.
Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the protection of the environment,
unites more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups
and is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International.
