Going round and round at the WTO

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For five days, till last Friday, the WTO talks in Geneva produced fresh terminology, instead of progress. The negotiations were mainly among seven principal members - the US, EU, Japan, Australia, China, Brazil and India - described by WTO director-general Pascal Lamy as the "variable geometry" of the talks. Those who protested at being kept waiting in the wings, were told the process would move in "concentric circles". An agreement among the seven would have to be ratified by the wider body. The seven members did produce a compromise on 25th July, that made EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson gush that a deal seemed closer than at any time in the seven years time since the Doha round began. Three days later the blame game and finger pointing has begun. Without naming them US Trade Representative Susan Schwab has accused India and China of....

Winning the trust vote might be good for WTO talks

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Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said he would attend the talks regardless of the outcome of the trust vote in Parliament, when I spoke to him on the phone from Geneva. If the government slips into caretaker status, there is no bar on it continuing with its international commitments, though a government lacking legitimacy might not consider it proper to take policy decisions. India's negotiating partners might not take it seriously either, though Indonesia, which leads the group of 33 developing countries that are defensive on opening up agricultural trade without safeguards to protect their vulnerable farmers, said the talks could still go ahead. "It should not," affect Kamal Nath's position, said Mari Pangestu, Indonesia's Trade Minister "All of us, not just India, face different types of pressures and issues back home. The country's negotiating position has been well defined over the past few years." Thirty ministers spoke....