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Suspension of the Doha Development Agenda of negotiations of the World Trade Organization

Greens/EFA motion for a resolution

Tabled by Caroline Lucas, Alain Lipietz, Pierre Jonckheer and Fritjhof Schmidt on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Articles 36, 27 and 133 thereof,

–  having regard to the Doha Ministerial Declaration of the World Trade Organization (WTO) of 14 November 2001,

–  having regard to the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration of the World Trade Organization (WTO) of 18 December 2005,

–  having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas the main objective of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is the economic advancement of developing countries which needs to guide all parts of the negotiations in order to come to real and sustainable development results; whereas net economic gains as a result of negotiations must particularly accrue to the least developed countries in order to advance the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs);

B. whereas, according to most studies, including studies by he World Bank, the negotiation positions particularly of the industrialized WTO member states since the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2005 have considerably diminished the development content of the DDA;

C. whereas, in order to guarantee sustainable development, market access should depend on qualitative parameters with regard to resource consumption, production standards, and processing and production methods utilized;

D. whereas negotiations in the context of the DDA show a complete lack of any meaningful progress with regard to qualitative parameters in market access negotiations since the inception of the DDA in the autumn of 2001;

E. whereas the ending of the Trade Promotion Authority in the US in June 2007 has exerted undue pressure on WTO member states to finalize the substantive negotiations by the summer of 2006;

F. whereas the WTO as a membership-driven organization must fully adhere to its principles of democratic decision making, remain inclusive in its negotiation procedure, and guarantee the consensus of all members to all outcomes;

1. takes note of the fact that WTO members were not able to finalize negotiations in the targeted timeframe, leading to the formal suspension of negotiations for the time beingNRPARAMSG;

2. regards the delay in the completion of the DDA as an opportunity to reconsider the development content and approach of the negotiations in order to make sure that the DDA will eventually result in meaningful, real and sustainable economic gains particularly for the developing countries that have suffered net economic losses since the completion of the Uruguay Round;

3. calls on all WTO members to rethink some of the basic assumptions of the DDA negotiation framework which unduly add complexity and hinder the achievement of results, especially the concept of a single undertaking, the overloading of the negotiation agenda through the inclusion of trade in other than goods, and the present categorization of member countries according to their economic performance;

4. calls on the Commission and the other industrialized members of the G-6 grouping to stop making negotiations on agricultural market access and on agricultural subsidies conditional on concessions from the developing countries in NAMA and GATS negotiations; underlines the importance of coming to a balanced and development orientated result in each of these negotiations, independently and on their own merits, in order to successfully conclude the DDA;

5. warns the members of the G-6 Grouping and the WTO Director-General and Chair of the Trade Negotiations Committee Pascal Lamy against exploiting the present suspension of formal negotiations by conducting informal talks among the G-6 members, in the absence of obligations to report back to the entire WTO membership; recalls the history of the DDA which shows an increasing diversification of the economic and development interests of WTO members that cannot be reflected by decision-making by an exclusive club of members; stresses that the upholding of the democratic principles of the WTO is a precondition for the successful conclusion of the DDA;

6. equally warns the Commission and Council, and the US against diminishing the importance of the multilateral trade system as the main vehicle to achieve balanced and sustainable global economic development by retreating to bilateral or regional trade agreements conducted purely on the basis of national economic interests;

7. underlines its overriding interest that the DDA should deliver an outcome genuinely designed to achieve poverty eradication and sustainable development, and calls on all WTO members to work towards this goal independently of time pressures;

8. instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission, the parliaments of the WTO Member States, the Director-General of the WTO and the President of the Interparliamentary Union.

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