To: stopWTORound@egroups.com stopWTORound@egroups.com

Date: Sunday, September 17, 2000 07:01

Subject: [StopWTORound] fwd: "Melbourne experience suggests years of delay for new trade round"

>GUARDIAN (London) Tuesday September 12, 2000

>

>by Charlotte Denny and Patrick Barkham in Sydney

>

>Swift descent into violence at the Crown casino

>

>This was supposed to be three days of high-powered talks

>bringing together in Melbourne some of biggest names of the

>Asian-Pacific region. Instead, the World Economic Forum

>descended into Seattle-style violence as anti-capitalist

>demonstrators clashed with police.

>

>The success of demonstrations last November in scuppering vital

>trade talks has given new life to the protesters - many of whom

>had rallied to the anti-capitalist cause via websites which sprung

>up from the demonstrations against the World Trade Organisation

>in Seattle.

>

>At least eight people were taken to hospital, including two

police

>officers, as protesters tried to prevent delegates entering the Crown

>casino. Police reported that there were 1,500 demonstrators,

>although the organisers claimed nearer 10,000.

>

>Western Australia's right-wing prime minister, Richard Court,

>was stranded in his vehicle for 20 minutes as protesters daubed

>it with paint and let down the tyres, while Aboriginal activists

>"arrested" Mr Court for supporting mandatory sentencing, which

>leads to the jailing of people in Australia for petty crime.

>

>Mr Court was forced to turn back after 50 baton-charging

>police officers failed to dislodge the protesters' barricades. Chosen

>for its secluded riverside site, the casino and other probable

>targets of anti-globalisation feeling nearby had been heavily

>fortified against the protesters.

>

>What is worse for the organisers of the conference is that

the

>demonstrations slowed the WEF's registration programme and

>reduced the number attending speeches and dinners on the

>first day of the conference, as up to 200 delegates stayed

in

>their hotel rooms. Observers inside the building reported some of

>the events were only 50% full.

>

>BRAVE FACE

>

>After Melbourne, the next stops on the travel itinerary of the

global

>summit protesters are the annual meetings of the World Bank

>and International Monetary Fund in Prague later this month. In

>public they are putting a brave face on things, but in private the

>world's top trade negotiators admit that the chances of a new

>round of trade negotiations starting by the end of the year have

>shrunk to zero.

>

>Diplomats from the 139 members of the World Trade

>Organisation had hoped that the collapse of attempts to

>launch a new round last December would prove a temporary

>setback. Now they are blaming the US presidential elections for

>the delay, noting that any substantial negotiations are

>impossible until the political make-up of the new administration is

>known.

>

>Next year, the world's most populous country, China, joins the

>Gneva ased body, which will tip the balance of power

inside

>the rganisation away from the "Quad" - Japan, Canada, the US and

>he EU - who ave traditionally managed the global trading system

>and in the past rovided political impetus for new talks.

>

>As a price of joining, China is opening large parts of its industry

to

>ompetition from foreign firms, which is expected to cause

>disruption throughout its economy. Beijing will not be

>enthusiastic about starting another set of talks to open further

>markets until it has digested the fallout.

>

>Privately, Quad policymakers admit that there is no political

>momentum for a new round, and that the trade agenda is bogged

>down in Geneva bureaucracy. Senior trade policymakers are

>now whispering that the organisation's rambunctious New Zealand

>head, Mike Moore may be a lame duck who will never see a trade

>round launched under his watch.

>

>Indeed, time is running out for Moore who has only two more

>years at the helm of the WTO. The political fudge which

>shoehorned him into the job means he has a shorter than usual

>term, split with his rival, the Thai finance minister, Dr Supachai

>Panitchpakdi. Moore was the US's first choice and Supachai

>made himself so unpopular with US negotiators during the

>selection process, that some insiders doubt he will be able to

>muster sufficient support from the world's biggest trading nation to

>launch a round during his term of office which ends in 2005.

>

>FRACTIOUS RELATIONS

>

>Assuming Supachai's successor manages to get a trade round

>launched with a year of taking office, past experience suggests it

>will take five or six years to conclude. That suggests the

earliest

>that the next round of talks will be signed off will be around 2012-

>13 - a gap of almost 20 years since the end of the Uruguay round

>and the longest gap between trade rounds since the founding of

>the WTO's predecessor 50 years ago.

>

>The strains of running the global trading system without

fresh

>negotiations are showing. Relations between the world's

>biggest trading blocs, the EU and the US, are increasingly

>fractious, with the two seemingly unable to solve arguments over

>hormone treated beef, Caribbean bananas and Washington's

>billion dollar export subsidies to US multinationals.

>

>Any day now, the US will publish the latest list of EU goods it is

>targeting for sanctions under long running disputes over bananas

>and hormone treated beef. The US has been authorised to apply

>0m of sanctions by the WTO because the EU's ban on beef

>and import regime favouring Caribbean bananas contravene global

>trading rules. But America's decision to rotate the list it targets

has

>been described by EU negotiators as pouring fuel on the fire as it

>creates uncertainty for a greater group of producers. Battles behind

>the scenes between the world's trading powers are as heated as

>the fights outside their summits - and the protesters' anti-trade

>agenda appears to be getting the upper hand.

>

>

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>