Why greed is good in WTO
The other side, led by the US, think they are calling the bluff of the EU once again.
But it isn’t a bluff; the EU’s offer to cut its highest farm tariffs by 60% and lower tariffs by 35 to 60%, almost halving the overall tariff rate from around 23% to 12%, is as far as Brussels will go.
It is still subject to approval by France, threatening to use its veto in the EU to sink the offer.
Negotiators in the US and countries allied to them in these talks do not realise the significance of France’s stance, backed up by Hungary, Poland, Spain and other member states to varying extents, including Ireland.
The US deemed the EU offer inadequate, a position echoed quickly by the Cairns Group of 17 major food exporters, notably Australia, Brazil, Canada and South Africa.
They must have forgotten how previous high-level WTO gatherings in Seattle and Cancun, Mexico collapsed under the weight of disagreements.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy knows better. He said the EU’s latest concession on agricultural tariffs was worthy of serious debate.
Another senior WTO negotiator said the EU made a genuine effort to get the engine restarted, but the WTO ship was still drifting towards the rocks.
It looks like the greed of the other side in WTO talks will be their downfall.
That’s all that European farmers can now depend on.
It has come that close to a world trade agreement which would leave the cattle and sheep industries here in Ireland depending on special ‘sensitive product status’ and ‘safeguard clause’ mechanisms, according to meat processors.
Still, the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada and South Africa seem to want more, more, more. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank want more too. They have attacked countries that they said “clung to farm subsidies and high tariffs“; cut them by 75%, they demand.
They say more open markets would lift millions of people in developing countries from poverty, and boost growth in rich and poor countries alike.
But Irish and other EU farmers would be the first sacrifice to make it happen. European farmers would no longer feed Europe; primarily, American and European agribusinesses which have relocated to countries with cheap labour and no environmental regulations would feed Europe. These firms would force even more small peasant farming families off the land, as in Brazil, the world’s top food exporter - until foot and mouth infected cattle were found last month. There may be growth in rich and poor countries, as promised by the bankers, but poorly shared, with only multinational agribusiness really getting fat, from factory farming.
WTO says agreement is needed in agriculture before the 14 other business sectors in WTO talks.
But in these sectors also, multinational businesses and bankers will be the big beneficiaries.
In Europe at least, real people power oppose the WTO and the bankers - people power which should now led by the EU’s 15m farmers, invited last week by French trade minister Christine Lagarde to mobilise and rally in Brussels or in Strasbourg, unless the European Commission changes course, and the US offers WTO concessions.
In the pouring rain in Seattle in 1999, 50,000 to 100,000 protested; farmers should swell that number in Hong Kong.
