- Ministers are looking for deals on food, vaccines, fishing
- The WTO’s global deals must be agreed by consensus
- Protesters organize “death” in the WTO due to the refusal of the IP for COVID
GENEVA, June 16 (Reuters) – World Trade Organization talks on food, fisheries and vaccines continued into the early hours of Thursday amid growing suspicions that a tough deal could lead to deals in the face of India’s intransigence.
During this week’s WTO Ministerial Conference, its first major meeting in more than four years, the 164-member body sought to agree on a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, reduce fishing subsidies, pledge food security and launch of internal reform in a package of deals that are essential to prove the body’s relevance.
“There are still no results,” said a source involved in the ongoing talks in the Green Room at WTO headquarters in Geneva. Pakistan’s Trade Minister Syed Navid Kamar told Reuters earlier that he believed the WTO was heading for a “ministerial meeting without results”.
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A WTO spokesman was more optimistic, saying he had made significant progress and was not far from agreements.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iuela told more than 100 ministers present that time was running out and that they needed to “make extra efforts”. The conference on June 12-15 has already been extended by an additional day on Thursday. U.S. Trade Representative Catherine Ty is leaving in the morning, a U.S. official confirmed, adding pressure to close deals in the coming hours.
The WTO makes decisions by consensus, so that only one objection can sink the deal.
Delegates said India, which has a history of blocking multilateral trade deals, seems far from ready to compromise. This opinion was supported by the comments of the Indian Minister of Trade Sri Piyush Goyal, made in closed sessions and which New Delhi chose to publish.
India, South Africa and other developing countries have been seeking intellectual property rights for vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for more than a year, but have faced opposition from several developed nations with major pharmaceutical manufacturers.
An interim agreement between the main parties – India, South Africa, the United States and the European Union – emerged in May, but drew criticism from campaign groups for not responding.
Activists staged a “dying” protest at the WTO building on Wednesday, coughing and pretending to have fallen dead on the floor to highlight deaths they say were caused by a lack of widespread intellectual property renunciation.
Goyal repeated this opinion.
“My own feeling is that what we get is completely baked and will not allow us to make any vaccines,” he said.
The WTO is also pushing for a global agreement to reduce fishing subsidies, which would be only the second multilateral agreement since its inception 27 years ago and to demonstrate its importance in an era of growing trade tensions.
Goyal, in a comment to delegates, said India is a strong defender of sustainability, but its fishing industry does not manage huge fleets and relies on small-scale and often poor fishermen.
The minister said India and similar countries should be given a 25-year transition period to phase out subsidies on fisheries, much longer than most other WTO members offer.
“It is still unclear, however, whether a deal should be reached … with the Indians to raise even more objections to the text messages,” said a diplomat close to the talks.
However, civil society groups have said that rich nations, inflexible to the needs of the developing world, are responsible for the dead end.
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Report by Philip Blankinsop and Emma Farge; Edited by Louise Havens, Deep Babington and Richard Pullin
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