Transcript
30 November, 2009 (Geneva Time)
Cairns Group Ministerial Press Conference in Geneva
Subjects: Concluding Doha in 2010, negotiations on agriculture, Special Safeguard Mechanism, role of developing countries.
Minister Crean: Thank you for being here today and I am delighted that my colleagues, members of the Cairns Group are able to join me today for this press conference following the Cairns Group meeting. Cairns Group Ministers today delivered a very strong message on the need to conclude the Doha round in 2010. You can see the text in the communiqué that is contained therein. We meet at this Ministerial conference not for the purposes of resolving the Doha Round but to talk about the future. But the truth is that in our discussions today one cannot realistically talk about the future unless we bed down the present, and very much the present being bedded down involves the conclusion of the Doha Round. We also reminded ourselves that what brings us together in the Cairns Group is agriculture and that remains critical to the conclusion of the Round; in fact it is a fundamental driver of the Round. We’ve also recognised the important process and political engagement, informal political engagement, that has been a feature of trying to get the Doha Round concluded, commencing with the Bali meeting of the Cairns Group, hosted by my colleague Mari Pangestu, in Bali in June of this year. That was followed by important ministerial engagement on the sidelines of the OECD and of course the important ministerial meeting in New Delhi, which again involved a further meeting of the Cairns Group. These meetings were also backed up by the important outcome of the “G8 plus” Leaders’ meeting in L’Aquila in Italy also in June and the Pittsburgh summit. It is essentially from all of that that the setting of the deadline for conclusion in 2010 has emerged. So we’ve reinforced the commitment to intensify engagement; the realisation that the political will has been fundamental to moving us forward even though we haven’t yet been able to close the deal; the need to maintain that political engagement and hence the call in our communiqué for ministers coming together in the early part of 2010 to assess the situation and make necessary decisions. It is also important to note that political will and multilateral engagement are vital. So I draw your attention to, in particular, paragraph 5 of this communiqué. So far as agriculture is concerned there is a general view amongst the Cairns Group that while some difficult issues remain to be resolved, a major package of agriculture reform is within reach. There are a number of aspects of agriculture that really are at the point of political solution in an endgame situation. There are other aspects of agriculture that still require further technical work, but the Cairns Group has been at the forefront of technical and creative solutions to the difficult issue of the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM). As I said before, we see agriculture as central to the Round and fundamental to delivering real development outcomes. As a result of the very constructive discussion today and we note that other groupings have met yesterday and are continuing to meet today to reinforce this fundamental message we have delivered a message on the need to multilateralise our work, the need for political will and political engagement to help drive the process forward in tandem with the good technical work that is going forward, but a real desire to look at this situation and engage in the early part of 2010 to bring this to a conclusion.
The meeting is open for questions, but I would invite any of my colleagues who would like to add anything to the opening statement to do so, and then it is over to you for questions to any one of us. Thank you.
Question (Washington Trade Daily) – Thank you Minister. I often wonder why the Cairns Group, when it talks about SSM, it doesn’t think it is important to mention the unresolved issues, the most difficult issues, in domestic support. We always feel whether you treat the US problems with kid gloves. I want you to comment as well, Mr Stancanelli, to reflect on the unresolved issues of domestic support and why is it that the Cairns Group is not taking an upfront aggressive strategy to resolve these issues.
Minister Crean: I think we are taking an upfront issue to resolve outstanding issues including the ones to which you refer. Aggressive? I guess that is a judgement as to how one measures upfront and aggressive. I guess we take the view that we have to bring people along with this process, we have to find a balance in the outcome that we continue to push for stronger ambition in the case of agriculture but we do understand the SSM is an important mechanism to get right. Importantly, we have agreement at the political level which is driving our negotiators to two important principles. One, that there should be a mechanism that can deal with sudden surges, but secondly it not be a mechanism that also interferes with normal growth in trade. So a number of the aspects of agriculture, as I said in the outset, still remain to be resolved. Some of them are closer but will not be concluded until we get to an endgame. I think anyone who has had anything to do with negotiations knows that people will not make concessions upfront because it will be pocketed without getting what others are looking for in return. So I think that it is not just a question of being upfront, I think it is being skilled in the negotiating process and understanding the different moving parts. And of course for us as the Cairns Group the reality is that we have to deal with some moving parts that we don’t ourselves directly engage upon because the purpose of us coming together is fundamentally around agriculture. So we will continue to be upfront, we will continue to push ambition, we are closer in some areas to others but we won’t conclude any of it until we deal with the fundamental outstanding issues that still require further work at the technical level as well as the political will to close it off.
Ambassador Nestor Stancanelli, Argentina: Regarding the SSM, I remind many people here that the Cairns Group has been paramount in setting up the solution for the SPS agreement (Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) during the Uruguay round. And I would say that we are working very hard, also with technical work, in order to have the possibility also to settle the SSM issue here. We know that we need flexibility from every quarter, I would say, in order to reach an agreement. A question that is also very important is what you mentioned on domestic support. We believe that we have been very strong during the whole Doha Round of negotiations so far in seeking, I would say, a solution to domestic support that is fair to everybody, taking into account, of course, sensitivities around this issue. And also I wish to mention that is not only regarding distorting domestic support as this has been called but also we have done a great deal of work regarding green box and the possibility that there are distortions there. During the Uruguay Round also we suggested a cap for total support, including green. This is a thing we have to mention. The last thing is that we are in the middle of an international crisis; as Simon said, the multilateral trading system is very important to help all of us out of this crisis. We have to strengthen the multilateral trading system; and for the Doha Round we have to show, everybody, substantial flexibility to take everybody on board and I would say especially taking into account the interests of developing countries not only in agriculture but also in other sectors because the mandate of Doha is for development and this is the most important mission.
Minister Marco Ruiz, Minister of Foreign Trade, Costa Rica: I would like to add to Ravi’s question. Our concern is as a developing country regarding the SSM. It has some potential to distort south-south trade. There is a number of countries that have important trade in our region. The SSM public discussion has been put as a problem between north and south. Not so. There is a lot of potential if we don’t solve the issue in the right manner that it will also distort the trade we have in the region. So we have called for new flexibilities not only from the United States but for all the countries involved. I think it is important to solve the outstanding issues but the main message that we want to convey being here, being the beginning of the economy showing a lot of strength right now to move on; in this crisis, trade is part of the solution. So that is why we have to move on in 2010; and make sure over the next week that the agriculture group will continue their talks, especially in the modalities we have set up a complete, we have some advancements, we can in the early part of 2010 follow on from that if we want to conclude next year.
Question (Greg Rushford, the Rushford Report): As one who has covered these meetings since Seattle, I could bring my notebooks from previous meetings and almost see the exact same language, agriculture, the centrality of agriculture, and so forth, the need for flexibility. Has there been any progress since the last time Ministers met here and the SSM issue blew up and do you ever have the feeling that the General Council is morphing into the General Assembly of the UN. An unkind suggestion perhaps?
Minister Crean: I’ll let Tim respond to this because I think he has been with you since Seattle. I have a great deal of sympathy for you if you have had to cover it but for those of us who have had to negotiate it, even for the last two years, it is a frustrating process. But just briefly, if I can make this point, I think your question is, has progress been made since the last time in July of last year, we dealt with the SSM, the answer is yes. I think importantly the political requirement, the political balance of opportunity to deal with surges but not to interfere with normal trade is the benchmark against which the technical solution is now proceeding. That’s important. The complexity of the issues that Marco talks about, we are in a much better frame to be able to at least understand that dimension of the problem and have a framework for moving forward and I think the other thing that has been important is the technical engagement that has presented a number of creative solutions to this. We’re not there yet but progress has been made.
Minister Tim Groser, New Zealand: That deals with it.
Minister Mari Pangestu, Minister for Trade, Indonesia: Can I say something? I would like just add to what Simon has been saying, that there has been progress because the G33 has done a lot of technical work on this issue and we have had very constructive engagement within the auspices of the agriculture negotiating group and we remain very much open to finding the right solution. It has always been, even in July 2008, about finding the right balance between having a simple, operational and effective instrument that can be used by developing countries given its capacity constraints and being able to deal with volume surges and price declines in a way that you can do it in a timely enough way to deal with the issue before your subsistence farmers are going to be in a very serious situation but at the same time making sure that there is the discipline there to ensure that you don’t impede current trade flows. I think that is really in a nutshell what we have been working on and the group has been working for the last few months on coming up with the technical work. We have always maintained that we are ready to engage constructively, including with developing and developed countries that have issues with this particular concern regarding impeding market access. We will be continuing the work, and Australia has also provided some technical analysis and work to contribute to the discussion. I was also at Seattle but not as a Minister at the time, but as an NGO and I think we have come a long way since Seattle, even though we still have demonstrations out there, but nothing like Seattle, right?
Minister Crean: So you’ve got sympathy and empathy on your concern.
Question (Watershed Sentinel): Perhaps you were protesting at Seattle, were you? One issue that was unresolved actually since Seattle was the issue of genetically engineered food and crops and this is becoming increasingly an issue and there has certainly been a lot of concern after what happened in Canada were there was adventitious material I believe that was the euphemism for describing genetically engineered flax that was in a container and I am wondering how you are dealing with this issue because public opinion is still very much against genetically engineered food and whenever it is suggested in Canada, for developing for instance genetically engineered wheat there has been outrage across the country. This is definitely impacting on trade and how have you been dealing with this?
Ambassador Nestor Stancanelli, Argentina: Well, what I am concerned about this is that we have the SPS agreement. And this SPS agreement has clear principles on how to deal with the progress of science. First of all you have the standards from the international relevant organisations that is to say the Codex, the OIE and the convention on plant protection, this is one thing. When you don’t have international standards you have to resort to science and you have to demonstrate if something is negative for human health or for plant or animal health well you have the right to impede I would say, import or production of such goods. The thing is that always you are having from the beginning of mankind progress in science, and the right balance is to determine what is proper for human health, animal health and plant health and if it is proper maybe I was a traditional producer or evolution by science in order to approve and to trade and to cultivate such genetic modified.
Question: Thank you Mr Chairman. There are three aspects of the negotiations which are going on between the Cairns group and the developed world: export subsidies, domestic support and market access. Now it has taken almost nine years and no concrete result has come out of it. What is in your opinion the main stumbling block and what area of the three is the one in which you expect some kind of accommodation forthcoming very soon because people are losing confidence and the WTO as a whole is suffering a credibility crisis.
Minister Tim Groser, New Zealand: I think we all share the frustration behind your question but at the same time as we share the frustration, we have just come out of a transcendent threat to the International Economic System. The world’s worst downturn in 70 years and I am absolutely of the view that the two things that stopped it spiralling even further downwards were, in the financial area the willingness of governments to throw everything including the kitchen sink to stabilise the problem and the second key issue was the past achievements of this very system we are defending today. I think without that system in place, there would have been every reason for fearing that we could have gone much deeper. Without that system in place I think there is every reason to fear that we would have gone down a spiral into a depression. So it is against that sort of political background and appraisal that we are still sticking to the meeting here. Now, of course we wanted this done; of course we still want this done as soon as possible but there is a political time and place and we haven’t quite got there. This does not in any way deter us from continuing in this spirit. The very fact that we have just had such an easy straightforward meeting literally done and dusted in an hour and a half discussion is precisely because there is such a large measure of consensuses around the room, around the centrality of the agriculture deal, around the fact that yes there are some issues still to be finessed in parts of the text which are largely stabilized. There is the issue mentioned with respect to the SSM and there is some issue around the product specific blue box, but I think there is a very strong sense amongst professional negotiators that when the moment arrives, and I say when the moment arrives, I think it will arrive, to do this deal, this is absolutely doable. The area of the text that I think still needs some serious work on frankly is market access. We haven’t got an ambitious result enough on the table. That’s where the political tension lies, and in the meantime we will just continue to remind the world that we, Cairns Group countries, put agriculture onto the agenda in the mid 1980’s. I think we have achieved that objective and the lack of rancour around the table is simply an indication that we are all speaking the same language.
Minister Ruben Morales Monroy, Minister of Economy, Guatemala (Translation from Spanish): With regard to the last question, it is important to reiterate what New Zealand has said with regard to the will of countries, with regard to obstacles that we have encountered for so many years, as well as the will to seek solutions, and at the end of the day, over time and as discussions will intensify, this will change opinion, and this is what has allowed us to have progress. Perhaps not much, but there has been progress over the eight years since this Round of negotiations started. In particular, Guatemala has believed in this multilateral trading system, because as a small economy, as a small country, a small and vulnerable economy, we have seen that this system does provide benefits and is appropriate for countries such as our own. So Guatemala obviously has a great will and determination to remain confidently within this multilateral trading system. We are confident in the WTO, although sometimes we might feel that it does not respond to our realities, obligations and needs. But at the end of the day it is the best option that we have, and with regard to the future, we think it is, will be the best option, of course with some improvements to the institution, the secretariat of the WTO as well as to the multilateral trading system.
Question: First of all let me introduce myself, I am from the private sector and I have the honour to address the public sector. Of course you are the esteemed top hierarchy of the public sector so in the developing economy we are always worried that our relationship between private and public sector should improve although more dominant and more powerful on the side of public sector, so I am addressing a highly powerful sector which is sitting on the stage you see. Having said so my question would be the one thing that the abstract architecture of our discussion in talks to reduce the gap, the gap for what to protect the interest of farmers and especially in response to import surges. Having said so in a developing economy I see that the positions to the world trading system is more political orientated and less analytical and less often message must come from the group like Cairns you see. Why it is so and such you see, for example, in G33 we see that developing countries are showing some spirit that they would reconcile movement but then if they are moving and reconciling, then let us talk in terms of technical initiatives. In the case of group like yours then by those endeavours on technical initiatives I think a message can go to the developing economies that just and fair play of the world trading system is owned by the economies which are richer and comparatively stronger. My only concern is that I am a proponent of liberalisation, privatisation and I feel that the only recipe for the ailing economies of the developing economies is liberalisation and to conduct the trade in a harmonious means and in a more accredited form of a system which would only be available in the strongholds of a world trading system but then the political opposition in the developing economies must be diluted by a stronger message such as to appreciate the technical initiatives of duty free and giving the signal to the developing economies that you really mean business that will reduce the gap would probably be a good signal for the farmers like a country in Pakistan. I would think it is the biggest in my personal opinion available chance to really go for prosperity if we can manage the cost of producing in the new emerging scenario which we have always been talking, a just and fair balancing of subsidies.
Minister Crean: Perhaps, if I can just try and answer that question in this way. What we are dealing with in trying to bring the Round to a conclusion is a balanced outcome in terms of the modalities to improve market access in the name of liberalisation because trade liberalisation is important to economic growth. Trade is a multiplier of domestic growth. Countries, if they are to increase their living standards, need to engage with trade. But I think that there is a problem, quite frankly, in terms of developing countries, that it is one thing to argue for market liberalisation, but if they haven’t got the capacity to take advantage of those new market openings, what is the point for them? And that’s why this is a development round, and we need to remind ourselves of the importance of the development dimension in this Round, and to, and this will be an important focus of the conference itself, as to how, in terms of moving forward, we can also better integrate aid for trade, capacity building, those sorts of issues. Capacity building takes a number of different forms. The capacity of countries: small, emerging, less developed, to actually participate in the complexity that we are talking about here. It is a form of capacity that we need to address. Another form of capacity is the question of the infrastructure in the country: whether it is physical, or whether it is human, whether it is the logistics, whether it is the services dimension of agriculture to increase productivity and the skill base – these are all vital components that we need to address. Some of them, interestingly enough, can be addressed in the context of this Round, if we look creatively at the services sector. That there is a lot that’s going to be tied up with the aid for trade and the willingness, the greater willingness of developed countries to address the capacity building gap for developing countries. Market liberalisation is one dimension, it is an important dimension, but capacity building is fundamental to making sure that they can take full advantage of those marketing openings.
I think that that has probably exhausted the questions. I see no more hands. One more and we will leave it at that.
Question (Radio Free Europe): One of the main obstacles to Russian accession to the WTO is the problem with yellow box subsidies, which were practically non-existent in Russia a few years ago, and now is very important too for the Russian government to rescue its agricultural sector. Now, WTO rules demand that Russia cuts back these yellow box subsidies to a level of three years ago, and under such conditions, Russia will simply not enter. Is there a possibility of compromise in WTO rules for Russia’s case and what is the position of Cairns Group countries on these issues?
Minister Crean: I think that we will have to take this question on notice. Obviously it deals with the bilateral dimension. I am not sure what you mean by the yellow box either, but let’s try and deal with that…the amber box you mean? Anyway, let us take that on notice.
Thank you very much for your attendance and we look forward to a constructive three days. Thank you.
ENDS
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