News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Thursday, October 28, 2021
The World Trade Organization’s twelfth ministerial meeting at the end of November represents the institution’s big chance to secure a deal to limit subsidies to the fisheries sector, after 20 years of trying. But success is still by no means guaranteed.
The WTO Public Forum kicked off today in Geneva with delegates eager to get back into the swing of networking and debating critical trade issues. Rob Francis shares his impressions.
The 65 members of the World Trade Organization involved in negotiations on a text that establishes basic ground-rules for states on dealing with foreign services suppliers concluded their negotiations on Tuesday (27 September).
Negotiations towards a plurilateral agreement on e-commerce at the World Trade Organization moved another small step forward on Monday (13 September). Parties found a definitive settlement on two more sub-chapters in the area of ‘open government data’ and ‘online consumer protection’. It remains unclear what type of deliverable negotiators will …
By Chris Horseman, Rob Francis and Iana Dreyer. This has been the real rentrée week in Geneva. First meetings have been held among agriculture negotiators with health, trade intellectual property discussions happening in the background ahead of the next ministerial meeting.
The WTO’s Director General Ngozi Okonjo Iweala thinks some form of outcome on agriculture negotiations will be necessary at the coming 12th ministerial meeting. So negotiators are getting on to it! Also: the WTO’s dispute settlement body is innovating – if a panel report on a US safeguard on photovoltaic …
Fisheries, pandemic response, and agriculture will be the main priorities for the World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference towards the end of the year, according to its Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The long battle to secure a follow-up agreement to the 1995 WTO Agreement on Agriculture looks set to continue for many more years, following the submission this week of a long-awaited ‘draft negotiation text’ on the subject.
It’s taken former General Council chair David Walker about one month to figure out what members of the world trade institution in Geneva would likely want to negotiate on in the area of trade and health post-pandemic. Among others, Walker hopes that WTO members could agree quickly on a framework …
By Chris Horseman and a bit of Iana Dreyer.
