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Unfair trade deals unacceptable - ITUC

Unfair trade deals unacceptable - ITUC
By Joan Chirwa in Turin, Italy
Tuesday August 12, 2008 [04:00]

THE International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has said trade agreements that bring more hardship to workers in developing countries were simply unacceptable. And European Union commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Mariann Fischer Boel has noted that the failure of the ministerial meeting on the Doha negotiations was a serious defeat for trade and international development.

Commenting on another collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Geneva a couple of weeks ago, ITUC general secretary Guy Ryder said the competitive pressures that cause violations of workers’ rights and unequal distribution of the benefits of trade require serious attention when the Doha negotiations resume.

Ryder said a change in the conduct of the Doha negotaitions was needed to deliver benefits to the poor, further asking developed countries not to require huge sacrifices by least developed countries (LDCs) in return for minimal commitments on their side.

He urged developed country governments to assume their responsibilities to contribute some fairness to the world trading system.

The WTO trade talks collapsed after more than a week of intense negotiations on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) following the United States’ pledge to remove minimal subsidies but wanted massive concessions in emerging markets such as China and India.

But Ryder called on negotiators of the Doha Round to make a clear shift from the current NAMA architecture for negotiations in manufactured products in order to provide less drastic tariff reduction and increased flexibilities for developing countries.

“A change in the conduct of the Doha negotiations is needed to really deliver benefits to the poor,” Ryder said, adding “developed country governments have to assume their responsibilities to contribute some fairness to the world trading system and not require huge sacrifices in return for minimal commitments on their side.”

Although progress was made on a number of issues that would benefit developing countries, there remained clear imbalances in key areas. Considerable weight was put on developing countries to accept the NAMA proposals that were on the table, even though they stood to result in job losses and increased pressure on workers’ wages and working conditions, and prevented new industrial jobs from being created. Critics have argued on several occassions that allowing free trade between LDCs and developed countries could kill industries of the latter, as most of them did not have adequate production capacity to compete on international markets, such as the EU.

“Any final deal must be analysed in terms of its benefits and impact for workers and the poor,” stated Ryder. “An agreement that brings more hardship to workers in developing countries is simply not acceptable.”

WTO director general Pascal Lamy however thinks the failure of the talks did not mean the end of the Doha Round. Lamy said he remains convinced that what was on the table represented twice or three times more than had been achieved in any previous multilateral trade negotiation.

And Boel last week stated that the failure of the ministerial meeting was a serious defeat for trade and international development.

“The collapse of the recent ministerial meeting in the Doha Round of world trade talks was one of those occasions when most politicians want to keep out of the headlines.

Quite rightly, the failure of the ministerial meeting was a serious defeat for trade and for international development. Ministers from developing countries recognised this all too clearly, even if many development organisations did not,” Boel stated.

“We have been approaching the Doha Round in a very positive frame of mind – looking for possible gains instead of staying defensively on the back foot. In the closing stages of the most recent discussions, we were even invited to be an honest broker between other large WTO members which were struggling to resolve their differences.

“The future of the Doha Round is not clear at this stage. What is clear is that we must continue to bolster the multilateral trading system; only then will the benefits of trade be shared between the strong and the less strong.

Labels: ITUC, TRADE, TRADE UNIONS, WTO

posted by MrK @ 6:33 AM