DG Okonjo-Iweala calls on members to “walk the talk” and engage in genuine negotiation

The Director-General told members at the TNC meeting that while members were "a bit stuck" in many of these key issues, she was glad to hear an acknowledgment from a heads of delegation retreat on 8 July on the need to truly restart negotiating at the WTO.

"Now is the time to walk the talk and move from reflection and brainstorming to action," she declared. "To not only take, but to be prepared to give. To compromise, be flexible and open-minded. To reach out to others, to understand their concerns and find mutually agreeable ways forward."

"There is engagement, but engagement is not necessarily negotiation," she added. "If we are to remain resilient at the WTO and responsive in a changing world, then we must remain faithful to the organization's negotiating DNA."

Prior to the Director-General's report, members at the TNC meeting heard reports from the chairs of the negotiations on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (establishment of a multilateral register for geographical indications for wines and spirits), agriculture, development and fisheries. These reports on the state of play in their negotiations were delivered by Ambassador Alfredo Suescum (Panama), Ambassador Alparslan Acarsoy (Türkiye), Ambassador Kadra Hassan (Djibouti) and Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson (Iceland), respectively.

On agriculture, Ambassador Acarsoy noted efforts under way to define a roadmap for the continuation of the agriculture negotiations, referring to a number of member-led efforts. These include  the Brazil-led process initiated a few months ago seeking a decision at the 22-23 July General Council on how to move the agriculture negotiations forward, the recent submission by the African Group introduced at the last meeting of the negotiating group on agriculture, and technical work being undertaken by the African Group, the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting countries and several other members, with a view to developing draft modalities in the different pillars of the agriculture negotiations.

Ambassador Acarsoy said he would wait for the outcome of the Brazil-led process, taking also into account the recent African Group communication, before resuming the negotiating process after the summer break.

On development, Ambassador Hassan said she has been working with a facilitator, Mr. Jia Jie Loh of Singapore, on how best to take work forward on the basis of the Ministerial Declaration adopted at MC13 on implementation of special and differential treatment provisions in the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement. The facilitator held an informal open-ended discussion with members on 10 July based on his bilateral consultations, the chair noted.

Ambassador Hassan also noted that the facilitators dealing with the issues relating to the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures and Article 66.2 of the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) relating to technology transfer have been reaching out to members on how to advance the work in their respective areas.  It will now be important to build on this momentum in order to make further progress and to eventually conclude these longstanding overdue negotiations, she added.

Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson noted that on 10 July he circulated a revised draft of the Additional Provisions on Fisheries Subsidies, which would enhance the disciplines of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies concluded at the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), in order to capture progress made to date and to preserve the opportunity to put it forward to the 22-23 July General Council meeting for decision.  A series of small group meetings at heads of delegation level were then convened on 12 July to hear members' initial assessments of the text and whether members would be in a position to join a consensus on the revised text, he said. 

Ambassador Gunnarsson said that, in his assessment, the overwhelming majority of members see the text as the basis for reaching a conclusion, even if some adjustments may be needed, and believe that it can be used to close the final differences soon and possibly by the next General Council meeting. On the other hand, a few members raised such fundamental issues and concerns that it seems questionable if the text offers a path to consensus for them.

Given the fundamentally different nature of these views from those of most members, the chair said he is finding it difficult to see how members can forge consensus based on the 10 July revised draft text unless something significantly changes. This does not mean that members should give up, he added. If members are to succeed in the coming days, they must find a way to address these differences and work in earnest to find a middle ground that could be reconciled with views of the membership at large, he concluded.

More than 50 members took the floor to comment on the reports, with several speaking on behalf of groups of members.

General Council Chair Petter Ølberg (Norway) also thanked members for their comments and inputs ahead of next week's General Council meeting. "It shows we have work to do, we have a really busy week ahead of us, but it's doable," he said. "Let's do it."

In her summary statement, the Director-General delivered what she said was an "impassioned plea" to members to negotiate in good faith with the common good in mind. She called on members to adopt the spirit of compromise in order to deliver on agriculture, fisheries subsidies and other issues on the agenda of the General Council meeting for decision.