Commissioner Lamy's Speech - 'The Doha Development Agenda is back on track'

Summary: July 31, 2004: Speech by Pascal Lamy, EU Trade Commissioner - The Doha Development Agenda is back on track - Closing Press Conference. WTO General Council, Geneva 31 July 2004

Speaking points - Doha Development Round back on track

Important step forward in the Doha negotiations; we have managed to walk 50% of the road.

In Doha - when we launched the talks in November 2001 - we laid down the plans to add one more floor to the WTO building
In Cancun we were supposed to frame the construction - but we failed! lack of coordination between all the technical teams!
Today, after a week of hard work we have adopted the frame
There is still the wiring to do from now on

The results today are good for the EU both in terms of offensives as well as on defensives. But they are also good for developing countries and others.

The EU had a set of offensive interests in the negotiation

on agriculture, and Franz will tell you more in a second - for the price of the EU reform of the agricultural policy, we have bought a refom of the US Farm Bill to the benefit of our farmers,
we have also made sure that all trade distorting elements of export credits, food aid or state trading enterprises are eliminated, just like our export subsidies
on industrial products, we have adopted a set of precise guidelines to cut tariffs - this is a key area for the EU - 70% of world trade
on services, we have fixed a date for the new round of negotiations to take place in May 2005: key to give political backing to this negotiation which is also crucial for EU services companies
launch of negotiations to simplify customs procedures

But we also had a set of defensive interests which we have now secured: we will continue to be able to protect sensitive products for EU farmers

What are the areas where the EU has made concessions? Clearly agriculture: we have agreed to lock in the WTO the reforms of the EU agricultural policy which we have done in the last years, including export subsidies, a long-standing demand from many developing countries; we regret having dropped three of the four Singapore issues out of the Doha agenda but the time was not right.

But it is also a good deal for developing countries and in particular the poorest among them:

elimination of all export subsidies
less agricultural subsidies - they get a reform of both the EU and US agricultural policies
possibility to protect sensitive and special agricultural products - vital for countries like India or Indonesia
strong call for duty-free and quota-free treatment for the world poorest countries
we reinforce disciplines on special and differential treatment for them in agriculture and in industrial tariffs: G-20 countries will have to negotiate, G-90 countries will have the round for a modest price.

We have put coal in the WTO locomotive, now need to make sure that progress is made with a clear date in mind, December 2005, date of the next WTO Ministerial meeting

Clear signal that the multilateral trading system is alive - after a period of doubt - and kicking and can deliver on the needs of all its members, in particular the developing countries. I said in Cancun that the WTO was in intensive care. Today I can say that it is not only out of the hospital but well and running.

The EU will continue to heavily invest in the multilateral trading system: we pushed for Doha, we pushed for Cancun, we pushed for Geneva and we will now put all our energy for Hong-Kong.

My thanks to all my colleagues and especially Celso Amorim, Kamal Nath and Bob Zoellick for the hard work we did together.

Ref: SP04-265EN
EU source: European Commission
UN forum:
Date: 31/7/2004

| Top |

< Back to previous page