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Switzerland’s Economy Minister Doris Leuthard protested on
Thursday against a breakaway meeting of seven leading powers during
crucial WTO trade talks here.
Ministers from 35 key countries are meeting this
week in a bid to break an impasse to the so-called Doha Round of
World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, which have foundered
for the past seven years.
But with progress slow to come, WTO
Director-General Pascal Lamy broke up the ministerial meeting to a
smaller group in the hopes that it could jolt talks forward.
On Wednesday, ministers from the United States,
European Union, Japan, India, Brazil, Australia and China, the
so-called G6+1 group, convened in a meeting and stayed locked in
talks until the early hours of Thursday morning.
“By doing so, you have put many of us
ministers in the waiting room—which creates political problems for
me at home because I am not able to defend fully the Swiss interests
and many of the G10 colleagues are in the same situation,”
Leuthard told a meeting of 153 member states on Thursday.
The G10 is a group of net importers of farm
products.
She also challenged the composition of the small
group, saying that it “does not reflect the interests and
sensitivities of many countries in particular the ones of the
smaller G10 countries like me.”
In addition, topics that were not meant to have
been discussed at this stage, but which were sensitive to
Switzerland were raised during the session, she said.
“This is unacceptable.”
One such topic was the so-called capping issue,
which was a ceiling on agricultural import tariffs applied by
countries, she said.
Switzerland has significant agriculture
interests, as it applies high import tariffs on farm products to
protect its domestic production.
Leuthard urged WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy
to end the meeting of small group and to revert to a broader
ministerial meeting.
“At this very critical phase of the
negotiations utmost attention must be given to the comfort all
members need and it is of crucial importance to ensure a strong
political ownership of the results,” she said.
-- AFP
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