State must declare WTO stance
Indeed, it may be approaching the time for the Government to declare under what circumstances it would play the veto card.
Such a declaration might not carry much weight internationally, but it would carry considerable weight in persuading farmers to vote in favour of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty in this summer’s referendum.
A tougher stance on WTO by the Government would impress not just farmers, but other referendum voters too, judging from the support for our agriculture industry expressed by both rural and urban TDs from all parties in the Dáil.
They warned that a bad WTO deal could kill rural Ireland, because an EU offer to reduce import tariffs in the EU by 70% would end beef production and undermine milk and cereal production. They said consumers and the environment could suffer too, because once farmers left the land, it would be very hard to restore agriculture in the event of global or regional disasters in food production.
As matters stand, Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan has said the trend in negotiations towards further EU concessions on agriculture is not acceptable. She is against a further disproportionate burden being borne by EU agriculture in order to achieve what she considers a bad deal on the industrial side — even though she says Ireland’s small open economy has much to gain from the rule-based multilateral trading system provided by the World Trade Organisation.
She says the European agrifood sector must not be sacrificed for the sake of a deal.
But farmers, at least, will demand stronger words than these, an even less conciliatory, more active stand, when new compromise proposals on core areas of the WTO talks emerge, probably at the end of March or in early April. They will certainly want to know in more detail where the Government stands, before they go to vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum, probably in June.
By then, Lisbon Treaty opponents will be holding up WTO as a prime example of the EU threatening to sell out one of our traditional economic sectors, and a reason for us to vote No to Lisbon.
On the other hand, WTO supporters will be saying a trade deal may be the only hope to avoid recession and global financial downturn.
And how the Government reacts on WTO may be vital for its bid to get the Lisbon Treaty ratified — which ministers see as critically important for Ireland’s economic future.
It will all be coming to a head this summer, when WTO negotiators need a breakthrough, or else face talks being delayed by several more years, or collapsing altogether.
Already, Ms Coughlan and her colleagues in the EU Council are under pressure, having been made to look somewhat foolish by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson going far beyond the mandate given to him by the ú. First, 14 member states, and 20 more recently, objected to his offers in talks, but apparently without effect.
It is not the first time Mandelson has outwitted the Government, said Deputy Martin Mansergh in the recent Dáil debate, referring to “gutting” of the Patten report on policing in Northern Ireland.
He said dislike of the Common Agricultural Policy blinds the British to where their own interests lie, and Ireland needs to make Britain aware of its high dependence on food imports from Ireland.
Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise John McGuinness says no deal is better than the deal now on the table, and not a day goes by without senior ministers and officials engaging in the world trade talks.
However, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs Michael P Kitt has said it would make no sense if Ireland, while generous in its contributions for world poverty reduction, didn’t support global trade agreements which can be equally effective in the fight against poverty in developing countries.
Such arguments will mean nothing to farmers in the run-up to the Lisbon Treaty referendum. With so much at stake, they will probably not tolerate anything less than a detailed statement on what Ireland requires in order not to use its EU veto against a WTO deal.
Of course, the WTO’s principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” means that any trading bloc could veto an eventual WTO package, even long after a deal on the agriculture section of the talks is agreed.
Here, the Government may have to make its intentions known very early in the game, if it is to reassure Lisbon referendum voters who are worried about WTO.
