"Today there are only losers" - except for all the people in developing countries, but they don't count, do they?

I just had to blog about this. It was on the news last night and C and I did a little dance.

I always find it so interesting that the mainstream media (on our tv at least) lays the blame for these repeatedly stalled trade talks on developing countries’ shoulders. The US and EU are pushing so-called developing nations to cut tariffs on imports, while at the same time refusing to cut their own, significantly more trade distorting, subsidies.

Pascal Lamy, the director general of the WTO, was quoted in the NY Times as saying: “There are no winners or losers in this assembly,” he said. “Today, there are only losers.” I beg to differ. Our tv news said much the same thing, emphasising, however that out of all the losers developing countries would be the biggest.

But have developing economies really lost anything?

I know that trade is more important in the fight against poverty than aid ever will be and that developing economies have much to gain from an end to developed economy subsidies, BUT they also had a hell of a lot to lose, particularly in the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) negotiations that were happening on the sidelines of the Hong Kong ministerial.

Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch says the GATS covers "everything that you cannot drop on your foot” (including banking, telecommunications, postal services, tourism, transportation, waste disposal, oil and gas production and electricity). Most importantly for developing country citizens, GATS also seeks to widen the scope for privatising public goods essential for life, like healthcare, education and drinking water. This is a disturbing trend, and while developing countries may have lost an opportunity to gain a slightly larger toe hold in developed country markets (something that’s very much debatable) they have gained a reprieve from the inherent nastiness of GATS.

Peter Hardstaff, Head of Policy at the World Development Movement, said: “Ever since the start of this so-called development round, the EU and USA have consistently opposed, sidelined and ignored a string of development friendly proposals made by poor countries. After the WTO’s Hong Kong Ministerial Conference it was clear that there would not be a development outcome. In that context, the collapse of the talks is positive.”

Hear, hear.

In all of this, I think my favourite thing is how well the WTO’s “consensus” model (which is generally enforced through coercion and scare tactics) really works. As it turns out vast majority of members weren’t even a party to the decision to suspend the Doha round. The WTO even admits as much:

Mr Lamy reached the conclusion to suspend the negotiations after talks among six major members broke down on Sunday 23 July. Ministers from Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States had met in Geneva to try to follow up on instructions from the St Petersburg Summit on 17 July.

So much for consensus.

And yay, for once, for developed country pig headedness.