Trade Negotiations Insights

Trade and Sustainable Development News and Analysis on African, Caribbean and Pacific countries - Discontinued

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Getting over those Doha blues

Volume
7,
Number
7
-
4 September 2008

Getting over those Doha blues

4 September 2008
Simon J Evenett
The breakdown of the Doha Round at the end of July makes a deal implausible for another year or two. This article argues that this is an opportunity for world trade powers to identify ways to adapt the WTO to the needs of the 21st century. Although difficult, the outcome of such talks could hardly...

Editorial

4 September 2008
For the third successive summer in a row, the annual meeting of WTO members in Geneva has ended in collapse. Hopes of capitalising on the all too familiar window of opportunity to secure a Doha Round deal were dashed when a disagreement over safeguards proved insurmountable. After the inevitable...

Banana peace slips through fingers

4 September 2008
Alistair Smith
Just in the nick of time, it seemed, all the warring parties - with the exception of a minority of European governments led by Spain - accepted the banana agreement brokered at the world trade talks in Geneva in late July. The WTO General Council of July 30 was set to enshrine an agreement to...

Bananas in the Doha Round

4 September 2008
Gordon Myers
In an attempt finally to settle the long series of disputes on bananas between the EU and a number of Latin American countries, the WTO Director General had accepted an invitation from Colombia to use his "good offices" under article 5 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding. Following discussions...

The EU's General System of Preferences - (to be) continued

4 September 2008
Ingrid Kersjes
On July 22 the new regulation applying the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for the period from January 1 2009 until the end of 2011 was officially adopted by the EU member states.2 This decision allows the EU to continue granting preferential market access to 176 developing countries for...

The CARIFORUM EPA and beyond: recommendations for negotiations on services and trade related issues

4 September 2008
Eckhard Volkmann
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has commissioned a series of studies on the so-called Cotonou Issues (services trade and trade related issues - TRIs) in the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) as they currently stand.2 These studies analyse the...

Policy space vs. policy lock-in: public procurement in the CARIFORUM EPA

4 September 2008
Kamala Dawar
The CARIFORUM EPA initialled in December 2007 regulates several behind-the-border areas, including public procurement. The provisions of the agreement recognise that transparent competitive tendering is important for economic development and the special economic situation of the CARIFORUM countries...

AfT: supporting ACP efforts in regional economic integration and EPA implementation

4 September 2008
Kamala Dawar
In its Conclusions on Economic Partnership Agreements of May 2008, the EU's General Affairs and External Relations Council reinforced the EU commitment to increase Aid for Trade (AfT), in particular vis-à-vis the ACP partners. The aid is to support trade and regional integration as well as...

WTO Roundup

4 September 2008
Victoria Hanson
Doha Round on ice as mini-ministerial ends in collapse International trade ministers and negotiators were unable to broker a Doha Round deal to cut tariffs and farm subsidies, despite major progress towards an accord at a high-profile summit in Geneva at the end of July. WTO negotiations collapsed...

EPA Negotiations Update

4 September 2008
Melissa Julian, Corinna Braun-Munzinger
To sign or not to sign, that is the question ACP and European Commission EPA negotiators return from their summer holidays in the wake of the collapse of WTO negotiations and a continuing global economic crisis. Military and political conflicts are also affecting several ACP countries. With the...

Resources

4 September 2008
Monitoring economic partnership agreements: inputs to the negotiations and beyond, Michael Brüntrup and Tobias Reichert (DIE), Sanoussi Bilal, Franziska Jerosch, Niels Keijzer, Christiane Loquai and Francesco Rampa, (ECDPM), July 2008, www.die-gdi.de and www.ecdpm.org Accord de Partenariat...