The Swiss government has decided not to convene an informal ministerial meeting on the margins of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this year due to “intense preparations” for the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference that is going to start in Abu Dhabi on February 26, Our correspondent writes.
Clarifying the decision to drop this year’s informal trade ministerial meeting, the Swiss trade envoy to the WTO Ambassador Erwin Bollinger told WTD that “As intense preparations for the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference already taking place in February 2024 are in progress, this year’s informal gathering of WTO Ministers on the margins of the WEF does not takes place.”
Ambassador Bollinger said “the Swiss Minister of Economic Affairs, Education and Research Guy Parmelin has however invited trade ministers attending the WEF in Davos for an informal ministerial dinner.”
However, it is not clear how many trade ministers will attend the WEF event. A trade envoy of a major developing country said his trade minister will not attend the meetings at Davos.
The European Union and Ecuador are organizing a meeting on trade and environment for those attending the main Davos forum, said a member who asked not to be quoted.
Previous informal trade ministerial gatherings convened by the Swiss government at Davos invariably offered a catalog of major issues to be addressed/tackled in the next 12 months. Though the Davos informal trade ministerial meetings have witnessed divergent views among the participants of some 30-odd countries, they have been viewed as an important way to get a feel for what issues are likely to dominate the WTO agenda, said a trade envoy who asked not to be quoted.
As trade envoys return from their Christmas break, they face a mountain of challenges on how to resolve their differences on a range of issues/deliverables for the MC13 in the next 45 days. So far, there seems to be little or no convergence on any of the issues that range from the crucial
“Outcome” document to “agriculture”, including on the failed MC12 agreements like paragraph eight of the TRIPS Agreement to include COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics, said people familiar with the negotiations.
The intense fish month of negotiations for crafting disciplines to prohibit subsidies leading to overcapacity and overfishing that will commence on January 15 is going to be a major litmus test for the success of the MC13.
The partial MC12 agreement on fisheries subsidies has been ratified by 56 members until now. The agreement will come into effect only after two-thirds of the WTO membership, around 109 countries, submit their instruments of protocol.
The final draft text issued by Doha fisheries subsidies negotiations Chair Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson of Iceland on December 22 appears to be overly tilted in favor of big subsidizers to continue their OC&OF subsidies so long as they provide an early notification of the measures they will adopt to take care of the stocks, said trade envoys who asked not to be quoted.
Further, the chair has not included distant water shipping in the main disciplines despite demands from many developing countries. Instead, the chair has included distant water fishing in the special and differential treatment list, said trade envoys who asked not to be quoted.
“The draft text seems to be an attempt at dividing the developing countries by conceding de minimis for the large group of ACP [Africa, Caribbean and Pacific] countries while isolating other developing countries like India and Indonesia even though they are not responsible for the billions of dollars of OC&OF subsidies that depleted global fish stocks,” said a senior capital-based official.
Another make-or-break issue for the MC13 will be on agriculture where differences seem somewhat unbridgeable at this juncture. Brazil has already said somewhat emphatically that “The success of MC13 as a “Reform Ministerial” hinges on a successful outcome in Agriculture.”
The chair for the negotiations Ambassador Alparslan Acarsoy of Türkiye has expressed his disapproval of the conduct of one member during the negotiations. There is no little or no convergence among those members seeking a comprehensive blueprint covering domestic support and market access on the one side, and those calling for the much-delayed permanent solution for public stockholding programs for food security on the other, said people familiar with the discussions.
Preparations for the “Outcome” document that would include the proposed reforms seem to hang in balance. Unbridgeable differences on integration of the plurilateral Joint Statement Initiatives – particularly investment facilitation for development – into global trade rules could mar the prospects of coming to any agreement on the Outcome document, said people familiar with the negotiations.
Aside from the Outcome document, there are other make-or-break issues like the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions and the much-delayed decision to extend the MC12 TRIPS Agreement to cover COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics.
Lastly, with several countries bound for elections in the next couple of months, including Indonesia and India among others, and the United States in November, positions of key members on several MC13 issues could get further hardened, said people familiar with the discussions.
In short, it remains to be seen how the preparations for MC13 will unfold in the next 45 days given geopolitical realities and the slow demise of globalization that worked as a bulwark for trade liberalization at the WTO, said people who asked not to be quoted.
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