The results of the Ministerial Conference highlighted the deep divisions between the 164 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was held in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) this week. The major issues of fishing and agriculture have not moved forward, only the electronic moratorium has been “saved”. Was this predictable? According to L’Express, yes. “Against a backdrop of rattling boots and growing geopolitical tensions, full-scale attacks on free trade and Sino-American strategic war, the WTO is in a state of clinical death,” we wrote at the opening of this meeting.
“Despite all our efforts, we have not managed to agree on certain texts which are of great importance for many of our members,” admitted the Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Thani al-Zeyoudi, who chaired the meeting. “I will end with a quote that I attribute to Winston Churchill, who said, and I quote, ‘success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.’ “, declared for her part the Director General of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. But she said she saw “the glass half full”, citing in particular the accession to the WTO of the Comoros and East Timor or the finalization, on the sidelines of the meeting, of an agreement on services.
She spoke of the “international context marked by greater uncertainty than ever” and pointed to geopolitical tensions, economic concerns and elections in many countries. Agreements are also difficult to find because decisions are made by consensus. “The beauty of the WTO is that each member has an equal voice, but this also comes at a cost,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The WTO has already been destabilized since the end of 2019 by the paralysis of the mechanism which allows disputes between its members to be resolved, blocked by the United States. The countries reaffirmed in Abu Dhabi their objective of successfully restoring the system this year. “Maybe the WTO needed a good crisis and maybe this one will make us realize that we cannot continue like this,” said a senior European official, who fears that trade will be ” increasingly characterized by power relations. “Even if electronic commerce is saved, we can speak of a crisis at the WTO,” added a source close to the discussions. “The keystone of the WTO has not worked for years,” Sébastien Jean, professor of economics at the CNAM, already underlined in L’Express.
Agriculture “makes or breaks” a conference
After five days of discussions, the negotiations on agriculture and on fishing subsidies favoring overfishing and overcapacity came to nothing. “Agriculture is once again the subject that makes or breaks a ministerial conference”, warned the European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski on the X network. The agricultural negotiations stumbled over India’s agricultural demands, key player in the negotiations at each ministerial meeting.
On fishing, the countries were notably unable to agree on the transition period granted to developing countries, with the countries believing that India was asking for too many years. “Several states have expressed radical positions in favor of their interests alone and have not made it possible to move towards a satisfactory compromise,” reacted the French Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, in a press release. India, on the other hand, agreed at the last minute not to veto the extension of the customs moratorium on electronic transmissions, but for a maximum of two years. Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said his country had decided to lift its objection “out of respect” for Thani al-Zeyoudi, calling him a “good friend.”
The WTO is stuck in “the mud”
“If we can speak of a crisis, it is because the consensus, which was the cement of this organization, has become the mud in which it is bogged down,” reacted Richard Ouellet, of Laval University in Canada , present in Abu Dhabi. For John Denton, secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce, “the unexpected weakness of the overall package of results should, however, serve as a warning signal.”
As with every ministerial, the pressure was strong for the WTO to show results. This year expectations were particularly high in the face of the possible return to the White House of Donald Trump, who did everything to torpedo the organization during his first term. The previous meeting in 2022 in Geneva ended with some success, with agreements on the ban on subsidies for illegal fishing and on patents for anti-Covid vaccines. A “miracle” that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had called for to be reproduced.
While her mandate ends next year, it remains to be seen whether she will still be present at the next ministerial meeting which is to be held in Cameroon on a date still undetermined.