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LUXEMBOURG, Oct 29: The European Union called on Monday for flexibility in crucial world trade talks in Qatar next month and stressed the need to help developing countries play a full part in global commerce.
In a statement at their final preparatory meeting before talks start on November 9 in Doha, EU foreign ministers stressed the positive political and economic impact of launching a new round of negotiations.
These negotiations will call for flexibility on the part of all the participants, it said.
The 142 members of the World Trade Organization will attempt to reach agreement in Doha to launch a new round of global trade liberalization talks, but draft negotiating texts issued this weekend showed deep differences remain to be bridged.
The 15-nation EU the world’s biggest trading bloc called for a strengthening of global trade rules and stressed the need for greater efforts by industrialized countries to make sure developing countries derived full benefit from the advantages of trade and investment liberalisation.
DUBAI: Although the World Trade Organization’s task is to free up trade and not political regimes, experts think that it will inject a dose of democracy into the authoritarian governments ruling most of the Arab world.
Officially, there are no political strings attached to membership of the WTO whose fourth ministerial conference is set to convene in an Arab country, Qatar, from November 9 to 13.
Arab countries which have already joined the WTO or are vying to do so will have nevertheless to expect political implications, says Brian Constant, director general of the Middle East Association, an independant umbrella group promoting British trade investment.
Inevitably, membership in the WTO means that the private sector will have a greater role to play, and it follows automatically that the government will have a lesser role to play, he explains.
As the private sector, industry and entrepreneurship have a greater effect on the economy, they will have a greater effect on the decision-making process of government, and it should lead to political liberalization.
But Constant predicts that Arab governments will resist such a transformation. I think in the Arab countries there will be initially a great reluctance from the governments to have less control.
Egypt, which joined the WTO as early as 1995, is an example. The political landscape is pretty much the same with still no new significant party authorised since 1978.
Eleven of the 22 Arab League members have already joined: Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
Five are candidates: Algeria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. —Reuters/AFP
