Green Room Meeting 1

A meeting in a "Green Room" (a dirty word for arm twisting bullying and imperial tactics) between EC, US, China, Brazil, Malaysia, Kenya, South Africa and Mexico was held. No one except ministers were allowed by the WTO security in yet another untransparent process.

The ministers met for 2 hours and it is alleged that Pascal Lamy (EC) and Robert Zoellick (US) tried to engineer a move by these countries on the Singapore Issues.

The EC and US stated that these countries must move on the Singapore issues so that discussions on agriculture could start later in the day.

India, Malaysia and Kenya left the meeting for a caucus while the others stayed inside. They were joined a little later by South Africa and the caucus continued. Together they decided that they will not move on the Singapore issues unless there was first a major shift on Agriculture by both the US and the EC.

Comment: The problem with this is that the imperial countries (EC and US) have managed to link the new issues with the negotiations on agriculture. This is also reflected in the draft text that was unprocedurally and unfairly drafted. It is unacceptable that these issues be linked for a number of reasons:

1) During th Uruguay Round developing countries made concessions on GATS and TRIPs to secure a deal on agriculture. So in terms of the reciprocity of the multilatral trading system they should not be asked to make concessions on Agriculture. The EC and US by clever sleight of hand (and by not giving developing countries the time to seriously read and consider the Uruguay round agreements have managed to actually increase domestic support and export credits for agriculture.

2) The Doha Ministerial Declaration does not place the Singapore/New Issues on the agenda and clearly states that explicit consensus (meaning all WTO members must agree) is required before negotiations begin.

3) The new issues discussions were facilitated by Canada whose representative has been accused of chauvinism and being against developing countries. Accordinly he is an unsuitable candidate for ANY work on a multilateral level.