World Trade Organisation head says completion of Doha talks 'do-able'
Updated
The head of the World Trade Organisation won't say whether the political will exists to complete the troubled Doha Round of free trade talks this year. G-20 leaders have ordered the talks get wrapped up, but Pascal Lamy says while it is do-able, progress at present is too slow. It's estimated that a completed agreement would boost the global economy by anywhere between 300 and 700 Billion dollars a year, a substantial contribution to global economic recovery.
But at least one observer says the chances of a Doha deal this year are zero.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Simon Crean, Australian Trade Minister; Pascal Lamy, Director General World Trade Organisation; Prof Ann Capling, Political Science, University of Melbourne
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MOTTRAM: WTO director general Pascal Lamy is very much at home in Australia and in the company of Australia's trade minister Simon Crean, who's a tireless activist in the cause of global free trade.
CREAN: Clearly trade is an economic stimulus, it's a stimulus that doesn't hit the fiscal side of government, it puts money in people's pockets.
MOTTRAM: And after talks in Canberra with Mr Crean and a cross-party Australian Parliamentary free trade group, Pascal Lamy, praised Australia's advocacy.
LAMY: I share Australia's activism.
MOTTRAM: But it remains an uphill battle to get the 153 member states of the WTO to conclude the Doha Round. Since 2001, negotiations have lumbered on. They've stumbled seriously and repeatedly not just on the limited will and capacity of Europe and the U-S to slice into subsidies, but also on demands from big emerging countries like India that they be allowed to continue protection for some sectors under certain conditions.
The last most serious failure was in 2008. But when the world slumped into recession on the back of the Global Financial Crisis through 2009, free trade advocates won the backing of the G-20 to try to reinvigorate the Doha Round, aware that hundreds of billions of dollars in additional stimulus could flow from a further freeing up of global trade.
But it all hinges on political will, as Pascal Lamy agrees.
LAMY: At a technical level as an expert of trade negotiation with a bit of experience, I can tell you it certainly is doable. The level of "rightness of cooking" of what's there is perfectly doable. Now whether there is a sort of you know political spasm of energy that then leads to cracking these few nuts, that then open the way for the whole conclusion, that's not for me to say, but it certainly, it certainly is technically doable.
MOTTRAM: Where Pascal Lamy is cautious, Political Science Professor Ann Capling from the University of Melbourne is unconstrained when asked what the chances are of a Doha Round deal this year.
CAPLING: Zero. And I don't think that there is any political leader that would think that the Doha Round would be completed this year. One of the difficulties of course is that we're running into the Congressional elections in the U-S and this is notoriously a very bad time for the U-S to do anything creative or significant in trade policy so we're very unlikely to see significant movement this year.
MOTTRAM: The trade system has also felt the impact of changing geopolitics, and particularly the rise of China and India.
CAPLING: It's a combination of really changed leadership group in the global economy and also the mismatch between the demands and the expectations of the key players in the global trade system that have made things difficult.
MOTTRAM: Professor Capling also points to the rising popularity of free trade agreements .. often easier to clinch, and a tool of use in wider diplomatic and political goals.
CAPLING: And it may well be that the future of liberalisation is going to be through these kinds of instruments of co-operation. But then that leaves the greater and more important question about what happens to, how do we still make global rules for international trade, global rules that are subject to dispute settlement. And countries haven't figured out a better way of doing that than at the WTO and so really that is what is at stake in some ways more so than the liberalisation gains from the Doha round.
MOTTRAM: The Copenhagen Climate talks last December, served to highligh how difficult global negotiations by consensus are as global political weight shifts. An eventual Doha deal is expected, more likely in 2011. After that, it's possible a more robust discussion will emerge about reshaping the negotiation process on global trade.
