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How is one to explain the failure of the
Seattle conference?
There are two circumstantial explanations
and one explanation of substance.
The circumstances will be familiar to you:
firstly, the conference ran out of time.
We were left on Friday afternoon simply with
too little time to reach an agreement. This
can be put down to the way the conference
was organised, more precisely to the fact
that negotiations on the actual text could
only take place on the last two days.
Secondly, some of the players were manifestly
unable to engage in any genuine negotiation
of the agenda. In this respect, one wonders
whether it was a good idea for the opening
of the conference to coincide with the start
of the electoral campaign in the United States.
Indeed, the United States hardly appeared
willing to make any concessions, which is
after all a sine qua non for any negotiation.
As for the reason of substance, the failure
of the conference can be explained by the
gap between the ambitions of the WTO and
its means. The WTO's procedures have proved
to be ill-suited to the need to encompass
both new players, that is to say, the increasing
number of developing countries seeking a
place at the table, and new topics going
beyond the usual matters of trade, such as
the environment or social standards. Given
the number of players and topics and the
divergence of interests between the participants,
the chances of reaching an agreement were
very slim.
It is worth reflecting on this reason of
substance. It is bound up with the fact that
the work of the WTO no longer simply involves
the liberalisation of trade through negotiation
between industrialised countries. Seattle
has profoundly altered the terms of liberalisation
in two respects:
- firstly, matters can no longer be confined
to reducing tariff and non-tariff obstacles
to trade. Consideration has to be given to
the impact of liberalisation on the main
parameters of our development models: fundamental
rights of workers, protection of the environment
and health, cultural diversity, the multifunctionality
of agriculture, quality of the environment
and so forth;
- secondly, negotiation can no longer be the
privilege of just a few players - the EU
and its friends, the United States and the
Cairns Group. Seattle had to take far greater
account than before of the major third-world
partners - particularly India, Brazil, South
Africa and Egypt - the emerging economies
- especially in South-East Asia - and our
ACP partners. Tomorrow, we will also probably
have to include China.
The combination of new topics and new participants
opens up very rich prospects for progress
towards properly managed globalisation. Having
said that, the difficulty of this task is
patently obvious.
Where topics are concerned, the European
Union had prepared itself well for Seattle
by pressing for a broad agenda to satisfy
those expectations of civil society that
this House, as an elected body and the legitimate
representative of our society, has espoused.
As regards the extension of negotiation to
all partners, including the developing countries,
the European Union also took the initiative
of opening the Conference with an offer to
the least developed countries of access to
the markets of the industrialised countries
at zero duty. It also succeeded in gaining
support for this initiative, firstly from
Japan and possibly also in due course from
Canada and the United States.
But let us have no illusions. What the middle-income
developing countries and the emerging economies
will seek in return for their endorsement
of our society-based agenda - environment,
health and rights of workers - will be substantial
improvements in their access to our markets.
And Seattle showed us that we still have
to convince those countries that our concerns
- YOUR concerns - are more than simply efforts
to defend a level of affluence which they
regard as a privilege.
The strategy of the European Union in Seattle
The Community is well placed to build bridges
between the positions of the industrialised
countries and the developing countries. The
Community demonstrated this in Seattle, where
we were well prepared both as regards substance
and on the political level where we enjoyed
precious support from the Member States and
Parliament alike.
We remained united and at the same time open
to suggestions. From time to time, we adjusted
our position, where it was felt to be necessary
in order to make progress in the negotiations.
This was the case for example as regards
the biotechnology group, which I deemed it
necessary to accept at a certain point. This
move provoked vehement criticism by some
Member States and some Members of Parliament.
I assume responsibility for the risk taken.
Since the European Union was the only delegation
to press for an ambitious agenda in the environment
field, I remain convinced that a biotech
group focused on fact-finding rather than
on negotiation would have been a small price
to pay for the acceptance of our environmental
objectives.
We also made a major effort on the level
of information and participation and to translate
into action those ideas I set out before
you at the parliamentary hearings in September.
A delegation of representatives of the European
Parliament formed part of our Community delegation.
We kept constantly in touch, a fact which
proved extremely useful for me as a negotiator.
This positive experience strengthens me in
my conviction that we must continue to involve
the EP more closely in the work of formulating
the common trade policy.
With a view to greater transparency, we also
included for the first time a group of advisers
comprising representatives of the social
partners, the ESC and the NGOs through which
we maintained contact with civil society
and economic and social interest groups;
daily briefings were held for the economic
organisations and non-governmental organisations
accredited to the WTO.
In short, the Community came back from Seattle
feeling that it had done its utmost to ensure
the success of the Conference. We now have
to continue the work begun.
What next?
The launching of a new round based on a broad
agenda remains our priority. However, we
must proceed with a certain caution. A second
failed attempt to launch the millennium round
would be disastrous.
There are a number of uncertainties regarding
the time when a new round can be launched.
There are two reasons for this: general dissatisfaction,
especially among the developing countries,
whose support is henceforth crucial. Any
effort to relaunch the process has to start
by repairing the damage done in this field
- a process which will take time.
What options are open to us? I see three
possible scenarios:
Firstly, a new ministerial conference has
to be convened. According to the advocates
of this scenario, some progress of substance
was made in Seattle nonetheless, for example
on market access, trade facilitation, or
services. Taking this as a starting point,
we then need to tackle those subjects which
caused the failure of Seattle such as agriculture,
antidumping measures and core labour standards.
President Clinton has said that the round
could soon be relaunched. At the bilateral
summit which will bring us together this
week, we shall be able to ascertain whether
this is an indication of flexibility or merely
a repetition of the familiar American positions
in favour of a limited round, focusing on
market access only.
The second scenario is more gloomy, being
based on the hypothesis put forward in other
quarters that the United States will in any
case not budge during the electoral campaign.
If this were to be the case, then there could
be no progress before 2001. The implications
of this scenario are disturbing: not only
would we lose precious time but it would
also mean that just one partner's inability
to adjust its position is enough to paralyse
the entire multilateral system.
There is a third possibility, which I would
call a "midway" scenario. If we
do not want to wait eighteen months before
resuming negotiations, we must try to make
step-by-step progress now. An intermediate
package could help restore confidence in
the system and create propitious conditions
for launching the new round as soon as possible.
This would therefore require us to press
on with the preparations under way in Geneva,
in particular by continuing the process of
alliance-building and preparation for broader-based
negotiations.
From the point of view of substance, one might consider the following steps:
- The institutional reform aspect. Well before
Seattle, the Commission made detailed proposals
concerning the transparency of WTO activities.
We must continue our efforts in this direction.
We must also pinpoint the causes of the practical
difficulties which impeded our progress in
Seattle and put forward workable solutions.
The work of the WTO needs to be managed more
transparently. The legitimacy of decision-making
and negotiation needs to be made more visible
and more consistent, in particular by ensuring
more effective involvement of the developing
countries.
Both routine activities and high-level meetings
such as ministerial conferences have to be
organised more efficiently if they are to
yield tangible results.
- One suggestion made by the Members of the
European Parliament in Seattle and reiterated
by some of our Member States last week was
to hold a parliamentary assembly. I find
this idea attractive as it would serve to
increase democratic control of work at the
WTO.
- Among those most disappointed and most affected
by the absence of a result are the Developing
Countries. It is crucially important that
the relaunching of the process leading to
a new round of negotiations offers them substantial
progress if we are to gain their support.
A potential way of securing their continued
support for the start of a new round would
be to maintain our offer to the least developed
countries and to join with them in deliberating
on coherence between the activities of the
WTO and the other international institutions
to ensure that trade liberalisation leads
to sustainable development of all the developing
countries, starting with the poorest populations.
These intermediate steps would enable us
to keep the process going and to be ready,
when the time comes, to relaunch the work
for the full round both rapidly and effectively.
In short, two distinct approaches are needed:
on the one hand, continuation of the work
on substance by endeavouring to build alliances
and support for a "broad-based"
approach to a new round and on the other,
greater efforts on the institutional level
to build up the logistic/ procedural support
we shall require throughout the negotiations
to come.
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