WTO urges businesses to pressure governments

THE deputy director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has called on European businesses to put pressure on their governments to proceed with the next round of negotiations.

Specifically, Mr Roderick Abbott referred to the contentious talks on the future of agriculture and the push for less subsidies and greater free trade.

“If governments are playing tactical games and not getting on with things business people must tell them it isn’t good for business.”

Mr Abbott was addressing a seminar convened by IBEC on the implications of the next round of WTO talks on food and agriculture due to be held in Mexico in September.

The WTO has been around for 40 years but it is only in the past 10 years farmers have been feeling the pressure for reform, he said.

Serious agriculture issues remain to be resolved but business must insist EU governments get on with discussions in the broader interests of freer open global markets, he said.

IBEC director of trade, Brian Callanan, warned that the Government would make a strategic error if

it puts farmers’ interests ahead of the rest of the economy in the forthcoming talks to be held in Cancun, Mexico.

Having heard all sides, Mr Callanan, IBEC’s director of trade repeated IBEC’s call to the Irish Government not to go to Cancun with a one-dimensional strategy of defending the Irish farming sector to the detriment of all other important Irish sectors.

IBEC has been urging the Irish Government - and the EU to put competitiveness issues at the very top of all agendas, he said.

Ciaran Fitzgerald, IBEC director of the Food and Drink Federation said that it was desirable to have a successful agricultural round and an overall WTO agreement.

For Ireland and the EU this means addressing a number of paradoxes such as promoting freer trade while recognising that under current WTO rules this implies lowering price supports in agriculture.

In this context, Mr Fitzgerald said the reality of the US position going into the round is that their recent farm bill proposals are incompatible with their stated aim for the DOHA agricultural round of reduced agricultural supports and more open agricultural markets.