http://www.ituc-csi.org/global-unions-statement-of-14191 After an announcement by WTO
Director General, Roberto Azevedo, that the negotiations in Geneva were not
fruitful, the Ministers are expected to continue negotiating in three areas: on
food security, LDC package and trade facilitation even though a negotiating
ministerial was not foreseen and many delegations do not have their main
negotiators in Bali. The International Trade Union Confederation and its Global
Unions partners published today a statement on the WTO Ministerial Conference
encouraging governments to only sign a deal that takes steps towards the
implementation of the developmental mandate of the Doha Development Agenda,
strengthens food security and assists the economies of Least Developed
Countries (LDC).
“An
Agreement on Agriculture that would protect governments’ power to purchase food
from farmers and enact food programmes will have great impact on the most
vulnerable of people – one billion of those depend on subsistence agricultural
activities” said Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of ITUC. However, in
its current form, the so-called ‘peace clause’ would only be a temporary
measure, which is a prize too high in exchange for a binding Trade Facilitation
Agreement.
The Global
Union Statement further calls WTO Members to conclude an ambitious Agreement on
Development considering the 88 proposals that appeared earlier in the
negotiations to make Special and Differential Treatment principles more
operational and effective. Such an agreement, together with a package for Least
Developed Countries that allows duty-free quota-free access to products and
preferential treatment of their services, would be significant steps to the
implementation agenda of Doha’s mandate. The global union movement and Civil
society have repeatedly called for an agreement on the basis of an
already-negotiated package of policies for the LDCs.
Agriculture,
development and trade facilitation are not the only issues discussed at Bali.
The negotiations for an expanded Information Technology Agreement (ITA-II)
collapsed and no new date for the restart of negotiations has been announced.
However, the Ministers will most probably discuss this issue and decide on the
way forward. Earlier this year, a broad coalition of trade unions and civil
society organisations addressed a letter http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ita_-_sign_on_-_final_en-2.pdf
to the negotiating Members of the ITA-II that warned developing
countries of possible erosion of domestic manufacturing and loss of growth
potential in higher value-added segments of information technology
manufacturing.
Read the
statement: http://www.ituc-csi.org/global-unions-statement-of-14191
