No more concessions
June 26, 2009
Using language that does not allow for much negotiation, France and the European Commission said that they would not make any more concessions in order to reach a deal at the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha talks.
"We have tried our very best and we don't move," said the European Union Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.
"We went to the absolute limit of what was acceptable to the agricultural community. We won't go any further," echoed French farm minister Bruno Le Maire.
Agriculture is one of the most contentious topics at the Doha round of the WTO talks, which was launched in the gulf state of Qatar in 2001.
Rich countries, like the European Union and the United States, support their farmers with subsidies, in order for the farmers to be able to make a decent profit from their products.
Developing countries like India, China and other smaller countries in Africa, Asia and South America often produce the same agricultural products. They can also sell them for less, because it costs them less to produce it.
For example, a farmer in Bavaria makes much more than a farmer in Hunan province in China. So, in order for Bavarian agricultural products to compete with Chinese products, the German government pays the Bavarian farmer a certain amount of money so that when the German product is on the shelf in the EU, it costs the same as the Chinese product. It can also restrict the amount of a similar product that the Chinese can sell in Germany, called quotas, or charge tariffs on those products.
Who paid for that jetliner?
Tariffs, quotas and subsidies are all controversial ideas in world trade. Take airplanes. The three major aircraft manufacturers in the world are Boeing and Lockheed in the US, and Airbus in the EU.
Recently the US has said that it will respond quickly and swiftly if European nations help Airbus financially to launch a new plane, designated the Airbus A350. The CEO of Airbus, Tom Enders says that Airbus needs the 11 billion euros in government financing in order for Airbus to compete with Boeing.
The Doha round of the WTO talks are ongoing and there is no resolution in sight, although WTO President Pascal Lamy has said that negotiations are 80 percent complete.
"We must finish next year," Pascal recently told a French radio station. “Technically, that is feasible. Politically things have taken a turn for the better.”
In the meantime, the US and the Chinese will continue to take their disagreements to the WTO, the EU will look for a way to protect its farmers and still sign off on the Doha agreement. And the Russians? One of the largest economies in the world? They don't even belong to the WTO although they recently said that they want to join.
av/Reuters/AP/AFP
Editor: Trinity Hartman