Speech by EU Commissioner Mandelson on keeping the Doha Round moving

Sommaire: Speech by EU Commissioner Mandelson on keeping the Doha Round moving (14 December 2005: Hong Kong)

Speech by Peter Mandelson, EU Trade Commissioner, WTO Sixth Ministerial Conference, Hong Kong

We can make this meeting the success we need to keep the Round moving

Fellow delegates, colleagues.

As we meet today, the eyes of the world are, literally, on us. It is not often we can say this without an element of exaggeration. Today we can.

We must live up to it. We have a responsibility to make this conference a success. I believe we can. As I have said before, Europe is here in Hong Kong to do business with others, if others are ready to do business with us.

Europe continues to seek a balanced and ambitious outcome to this Round.

I accept that we will not be able to achieve as much as we wanted in Hong Kong. I regret this, but I am not discouraged. We should not lower our sights. We must uphold the vision of a Round that delivers a serious boost to the global economy and above all helps developing countries, especially the poorest.

Our task is to make as much progress as we can. The draft ministerial text gives us a good basis. We must build on this. Our target should be to establish the strongest possible platform to rapidly take forward and conclude negotiation of the Round in 2006.

We should identify further steps of agreement we can reach this week, breaking down the deadlock and creating new flexibility.

Above all, we must maintain the goodwill and the good chemistry between us to hit the ground running in the new year in order to complete the Round. We cannot afford to wait again. When the finishing line is in sight, it is the time to quicken our pace.

We will not succeed, in Hong Kong or after, if we continue to focus on only one part of the Round.

Agriculture is important. Trade distorting subsidies must be cut back. Substantial improvements in market access must take place. We have to complete work that was begun in the Uruguay Round. That includes eliminating export supports and disciplining programmes which do not simply feed the hungry but also reward the already well-fed.

That is why, in the course of the Round, the EU has launched, and is implementing, significant agricultural reforms, and why we are making major negotiating offers in export competition, market access and domestic support. What we are already doing, and what we have further proposed, is ambitious. It has not been matched by any other major WTO member. I have been disappointed that others have not seen fit to engage with us on the offer we put forward in October. Agriculture Commissioner Fischer Boel and I remain ready to discuss, explain and justify that offer.

But a single issue Round cannot succeed. We need more to negotiate about. That's why the success of the Round will depend on our ambition to liberalise trade in industrial goods and services, and to strengthen trade rules.

Opening markets in these areas, if we do it carefully, sensitively, and with the flexibilities and exemptions appropriate for developing countries, can provide more opportunity, for both developed and developing countries, than what we do in agriculture.

For us in Europe, as our rural economy continues to diversify and adjust, as we absorb the full impact of reform, we will need to show that through the Round new opportunities are opening up in areas of trade in which we can enjoy an advantage. The only Round that any of us can accept is a Round in which we can show what we will get for what we gave. Is anyone an exception to this political reality? I think not.

Let me finish where I began, on development. Because this is a development Round.

Trade has huge potential when put at the service of development. Here at Hong Kong it is essential that we record a specific, early outcome that benefits the poorest WTO members.

We must get this right.

All developed countries should commit to providing duty and quota-free access to all products from all Least Developed Countries. Those advanced developing countries in a position to do so should make the same commitment. Europe has led on this. I welcome those deciding to do the same.

We need to confirm the promise of special and differential treatment for developing countries. The Least Developed Countries should be exempt from liberalisation if they wish. For other developing countries there must be recognition that obligations should be proportionate to their capacity.

Last week the Membership's decision to amend the TRIPS Agreement to provide better access to affordable drugs showed that the WTO can shape its rules to reflect humanitarian needs. This was a powerful signal. We should now agree an extension of current LDC exemptions from the TRIPS agreement.

We need to agree a substantial new package of Aid for Trade - helping build the capacity to trade that must go with market opening. The EU gives more Trade-Related Assistance than the rest of the world combined. It is time for others to make a similar commitment.

Of course, these things are not a substitute for the wider development goals of the Doha Round.

I want to finish with four short words. We can do it.

We can make this meeting the success we need to keep the Round moving and to give us a springboard for ending our work next year.

We can also keep alive the bigger vision of growth, welfare and justice in the international trading system - spreading the benefits of trade for all developing countries, including the neediest ones. That is what justice means for trade, and it lies at the heart of what Europe brings to this Ministerial Conference.

Ref: SP05-327EN
Source UE: Commission Européenne
UN forum:
Date: 14/12/2005

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