friends of the earth international
wto deal endangers environment,
development
e.u. and u.s. demanded high price for empty
concessions
August 1, 2004 – Geneva
(Switzerland)/Brussels (Belgium)/ Washington
D.C. (US) – After an agreement was reached
late Saturday in Geneva to rescue World Trade
Organisation (WTO) talks, Friends of the
Earth International said that the deal was
the result of undemocratic procedures and
intense pressure that rich countries -such as
the US and the European Union- exerted on
developing countries.
In a rush to secure a deal governments
turned a blind eye to potential environmental
and social implications. The deal establishes
an agenda for further negotiations that could
threaten people and the environment
worldwide, according to Friends of the Earth
International, the world's largest grassroots
environmental network.
"Governments are trading away our
environment at the WTO. The WTO has already
been used in the past as a weapon against
environmental protection and public health.
With this deal, even more environmentally and
socially sensitive sectors will be
liberalised. Corporate lobby groups will be
the big winners, the environment and the poor
the big losers," said Alexandra Wandel of
Friends of the Earth. [1]
In particular, the agreement on
Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA)
threatens to harm the environment and
developing country economies, according to
Friends of the Earth International. The
agreement proposes to include effectively all
natural resources for either partial or
complete liberalisation. [2]
Despite some ambiguous language in the
NAMA agreement on the concerns of developing
countries, developing countries could face
the loss of their ability to use national
policies to promote development. The NAMA
agreement could further deepen the
deindustrialisation crisis in these
countries, thus accelerating unemployment and
poverty and forcing countries to rely more
heavily on unsustainable and harmful exports
of natural resources.
The WTO agreement also puts undue pressure
on developing countries to open up service
sectors. Friends of the Earth believes these
negotiations pose a threat to the ability of
countries to regulate basic services in the
pursuit of social and development goals. The
WTO framework agreement ignores civil society
calls to exempt essential services, such as
education, water, health, and energy. [3]
The so-called concessions by the EU and US
in the agricultural negotiations turn out to
be empty promises, according to Friends of
the Earth. The commitment to eliminate export
subsidies credits is missing any substance as
no end date is mentioned in the text. On
domestic support for agriculture, language in
the framework agreement clearly opens the
door for the EU and US to maintain nearly
their entire level of current subsidies and
to use these to continue the dumping of
agricultural goods in developing country
markets. At the same time, developing
countries could be forced to give up import
protections used to achieve food
sovereignty.
Friends of the Earth also criticized the
extremely secretive and closed process used
for negotiations in Geneva, including the
exclusion of many country negotiators from
key negotiating sessions and the complete
barring of non-governmental organizations
from the negotiating venue.
David Waskow of Friends of the Earth US
said: "The WTO process is completely
undemocratic, and this framework agreement is
the result. If the WTO proceeds on the course
just laid out, these negotiations will pose a
serious threat to people and the environment
around the world."
For more information contact
Friends of the Earth:
In Europe Alexandra Wandel, FoE Europe,
alexandra.wandel@foeeurope.org
, +49 172748 39 53
In the US David Waskow, FoE US,
dwaskow@foe.org
, +1 202 222 0716 or 202 265 1818.
In Asia Meena Raman, FoE Malaysia, tel :
+604-8299511
meenaco@pd.jaring.my
notes to editors
[1] Based on already existing WTO
agreements, a US-led coalition is using the
WTO to undermine other countries' rights to
restrict trade in genetically modified
organisms. See
http://www.bite-back.org
[2] All you need to know about NAMA: Why
NAMA threatens development and environment,
available at
http://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/NAMAenvironmentFINAL.pdf
[3] Stop the GATS! WTO's General Agreement
on Trade and Services will undermine social
and environmental sustainability, available
at
http://www.foei.org/publications/pdfs/stop_gats.pdf
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