Australia holds grave fears over Seattle talks

By Boyd Champness

AUSTRALIA may have no option but to walk away from this weeks World Trade Organisation talks empty handed after it and the European Union failed to agree on the wording of a draft declaration before the WTO meeting.

The prospects for the Seattle meeting, which opens tomorrow (Tuesday), appeared dim after trade envoys at the WTO headquarters in Geneva last week abandoned negotiations after 14 months of talks.

The EU had insisted that multi-functionality be included in the draft declaration; something Australia and the Cairns Group of free-trade nations couldnt agree to.

Multi-functionality is a loose term that enables EU countries to justify subsidy payments to farmers on social and environmental grounds, and stem the migration of country people moving to the cities.

“Weve made it abundantly clear that the use of the word provides too much opportunity for countries who dont want to make progress in terms of reform to hide behind,” Australias trade minister Mark Vaile told The Weekly Times last week.

The National Farmers Federation has thrown its support behind the government, warning that if multi-functionality remains in the ministerial declaration at the conclusion of the Seattle meeting, Australia and the Cairns Group will not be able to support the result.

“We are not prepared to have that word in any WTO declaration, and if Seattle fails, well just have to go back to Geneva for negotiations,” NFF trade director Lyall Howard told the newspaper.

At stake is a potential benefit to Australia of around A$7.5 billion (£3bn) a year.

By the weekend, Australian farmers will either be celebrating a genuine move towards a level playing field for the first time in 50 years, or mourning the prospect of more of the same.

But while Australia remains pessimistic about a positive outcome, the United States is talking it up, with US Trade Representative Ms Charlene Barshefsky declaring that “failure was not an option”.

“At the end, it will all come together, because it has to come together,” she was quoted in The Age newspaper as saying. “Everyone knows that failure is not an option.”