WTO meet may be shifted from Doha?

By Amit Baruah

SINGAPORE, OCT. 14.The European Union Trade Commissioner, Mr. Pascal Lamy, said since Doha was in the ``vicinity'' of what is now a ``war zone'' holding the WTO Ministerial Meeting there raised a ``number of concerns''. Mr. Lamy told reporters at the end of the informal WTO Ministerial meeting that there was a commitment to hold the meeting on the dates agreed to earlier - November 9 to 13. The E.U. Commissioner said they were evaluating the situation on a day-to-day basis but any change of venue had to be a collective decision. He said the idea was not to offend Qatar in any way - a possible change in venue had nothing to do with Qatar itself, but the uncertainties of the situation.

At a separate press conference, the U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Robert Zoellick, said they had ``good discussions'' with the Qataris on the ``uncertainties'' of the current situation. (It was clarified that the Ministers did not have the authority to take a decision on changing the venue. It would have to be taken by the WTO's institutional mechanisms). In the run-up to the formal Ministerial meeting, Mr. Zoellick, while referring to the failure of the Seattle meeting, said a different procedure had been adopted this time.

The U.S. Trade Representative said some differences persisted with the European Union on the environment issue while there were efforts to address the concerns of developing countries on capacity-building and the implementation agenda. Asked whether the U.S. and the E.U. were closing ranks in setting the trade agenda, Mr. Zoellick said: ``I wish it were so. It certainly doesn't seem that way to me.''

``On the U.S.-E.U. co-operation, this is something that Commissioner Lamy and I have been doing since we both took office...he and I together came to the conclusion that if the United States and the E.U. were at loggerheads, it would be hard to bring others around. So we worked very hard to try to close the differences. We certainly still do have differences, but I think we are trying to address those differences within a common framework of a larger purpose for the international economy...'' he said.

``The WTO is a total of 142 countries. It works by consensus. You need to bring along all the countries. Frankly, what we have been trying to do with other countries...we (the U.S. and E.U.) both have a sense that while we are trying to promote our national interest we have a larger responsibility for the global trading system...'' he said.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Agreement cannot be quantified: Maran
Next     : Pak. against J&K 'struggle' being termed
           'terrorist'