(08/11/05) WTO-conferentie Hong Kong - Beter geen akkoord, dan een slecht akkoord

• 2005-11-09

WTO Conference in Hongkong: No deal is better than a bad deal

Greens/EFA highlight missing link between trade and development

Speaking at the opening of the conference ‘Trade – as if development really mattered’ today in Brussels, Olivier Deleuze , former Green minister for Environment in Belgium and now head of a policy unit of the United Nations Environment Programme, said:

"It is not only unwise but counterproductive to separate environment, trade and development. The developing countries are heavily dependent on the environment; they cannot bear the cost of the depletion of natural resources, degradation of the physical environment and desertification. So think about what to do before the last tree is cut."

The conference takes place ahead of the sixth WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong this December. Green Co-President Monica Frassoni reminded the public in her welcoming speech that the WTO Ministerial should deliver on the Doha Development Agenda. "More than ever, prospects for developing countries are vanishing while new regulations, particularly on patenting and rules of origin, are set, which strengthen corporate power and monopoly protection, and strongly cut down policy spaces for the countries concerned."

”There is no automatic link between trade liberalisation and the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals”, Green MEP for Belgium Pierre Jonckheer added. “The question is under which conditions trade can be good for development”

On the first day of the conference, several speakers from a high profile academic background underpinned in their speeches the general critique that existing benchmarks for poverty reduction and living standards are weak and not reliable. Questioning the dominant paradigm that trade is an engine for growth, Robert Wade from the London School of Economics hinted at the missing concern for effects on employment and individual welfare. According to World Bank figures, the net gain of WTO driven trade liberalisation for a person is a penny a day. "In Hongkong, the development countries should simply walk away from the negotiating table,” Wade concluded. Mark Weisbrot from the Center for Economic and Policy Research in New York echoed: “The WTO is a net loss for the majority of low and middle-income countries.”

“So people should not be disappointed if the Doha Round fails”, UK Green Caroline Lucas said. “Don’t run more efficiently into the wrong direction. Start internalising costs and then remake your calculations” German Green Frithjof Schmidt added. Or, as French Green MEP Alain Lipietz put it: “Take the existing right to development seriously, and you will see."