L'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), réunie sur l'île indonésienne de Bali, a annoncé avoir approuvé, le 7 décembre, un accord sur la libéralisation des échanges commerciaux, le premier de son histoire.
« Approuvé », a déclaré le président de la réunion ministérielle, le ministre du Commerce indonésien, Gita Wirjawan, le 7 décembre, devant les délégués des 159 Etats membres lors de la réunion de clôture de la ministérielle. « Pour la première fois de son histoire, l'OMC a vraiment tenu ses promesses », a lancé peu après le directeur général de l'organisation, le Brésilien Roberto Azevêdo.
PREMIER ACCORD DEPUIS LA CRÉATION DE L'OMC
« Nous avons remis le mot “mondial” dans l'Organisation mondiale du commerce. J'en suis très fier », a-t-il ajouté. L'OMC a évalué à 1 000 milliards de dollars la richesse que « le paquet de Bali » permettra de créer, avec à la clef des millions d'emplois.
Cet accord, le premier depuis la création de l'OMC en 1995, est un « pas important » vers la réalisation du vaste programme de libéralisation des échanges commerciaux lancé en 2001 dans la capitale du Qatar, Doha, mais resté jusqu'à présent lettre morte. « Bali marque une nouvelle aube pour l'OMC », a ajouté M. Wirjawan.
« Cet accord est déterminant. Un échec aurait signé la fin de l'OMC. Il faut désormais donner une nouvelle impulsion au multilatéralisme », a commenté Nicole Bricq, ministre du commerce extérieur française. L'Union européenne, par la voix du commissaire européen au commerce, Karel De Gucht, s'est de son côté félicitée de voir « l'OMC sortir des ténèbres et revenir au succès de l'action multilatérale ». « Aujourd'hui, nous avons sauvé l'OMC et le paquet de Bali », a-t-il soutenu.
L'accord de Bali représente toutefois moins de 10% du vaste programme de réformes lancé à Doha, mais de nombreux responsables avaient dit craindre pour l'avenir même de l'OMC, et du multilatéralisme en général, en cas d'échec à la ministérielle.
UNE VICTOIRE PERSONNELLE POUR AZEVÊDO
Ensemble de mesures minimales surnommé « Doha light », le texte concerne trois volets : l'agriculture, avec un engagement à réduire les subventions à l'export, l'aide au développement prévoyant une exemption accrue des droits de douane aux produits provenant des pays les moins avancés, et la « facilitation des échanges », qui ambitionne de réduire la bureaucratie aux frontières.
« Bali n'est qu'un début. Nous avons dorénavant douze mois pour établir une feuille de route pour conclure le programme de Doha », a déclaré Roberto Azevêdo. La conclusion heureuse de la ministérielle représente une victoire personnelle pour le nouveau directeur général de l'OMC.
Le Brésilien a pris les rênes de l'Organisation en septembre 2013 avec l'ambition de réussir là où son prédécesseur, le Français Pascal Lamy, avait échoué : faire avancer le cycle de Doha. Avant Bali, aucune des quatre réunions ministérielles qui ont suivi le lancement du programme n'avait abouti à une entente globale.
UN ACCORD À L'ARRACHÉ
Puis, alors qu'un accord semblait en vue, Cuba, le Nicaragua, la Bolivie et le Venezuela ont soudainement rejeté en pleine nuit le projet d'accord duquel avait été retiré une référence à l'embargo américain contre Cuba, forçant une nouvelle prolongation de la ministérielle.
Premier accord dans l'histoire de l'OMC, ce n'est toutefois pas le premier dans la longue marche vers la libéralisation des échanges commerciaux. Le précédent cycle de négociations, dit « Uruguay Round », s'était conclu en 1994 avec l'accord de Marrakech, qui avait abouti à la création de l'OMC un an plus tard.
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The
WTO’s Bali Ministerial Conference concluded a day later than scheduled on 7
December 2013 with agreement on a package of issues designed to streamline
trade, allow developing countries more options for providing food security,
boost least developed countries’ trade and help development more generally.
In addition to the Bali Package, ministers formally adopted a number of more routine
decisions at the end of a five-day meeting opened by Indonesia’s President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which also saw Yemen accepted as a
new member.
“We did it!” said Indonesia’s Trade
Minister Gita Wirjawan, who chaired the conference.
“We achieved what many said could not be done. President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono told us on Tuesday that the mystique of Bali would have a positive effect on our
negotiations. This is the place where deals get done. I am delighted that Bali
has not let us down.”
“For the first time in our history: the WTO has truly delivered,” said WTO Director-General
Roberto Azevêdo. “I challenged you all, here in Bali, to show the political will we needed to take us across the
finish line. You did that. And I thank you for it.
The Bali Package is a selection of issues from the broader Doha Round negotiations. Echoing calls from many delegations, Mr Azevêdo, said members’ attention
should now turn the rest of the round, known semi-officially as the Doha
Development Agenda.
“With the Bali package you have reaffirmed not just your commitment to the
WTO — but also to the delivery of the Doha Development Agenda,” Mr Azevêdo
said. “The decisions we have taken here are an important stepping stone towards
the completion of the Doha round.
“And it is very welcome that you have instructed us to prepare, within the
next 12 months, a clearly defined work program to this end.”
The deal on the Bali Package was struck after intensive consultations almost
round the clock from Wednesday 4 December until the early hours of Friday 6
December, followed by overnight meetings of heads of all delegations the
following night.
Happiness and sadness
Ministers and other delegates greeted the agreement enthusiastically, with
repeated clapping and cheering. But the conference was also tinged with sorrow
at the news of the death of former President Nelson Mandela.
Mr Azevêdo, Mr Gita, and numerous ministers and delegates paid tribute to Mr Mandela
as an inspiration for all, including in the pursuit of the WTO’s difficult
goals. Mr Gita quoted him: “It always seems impossible, until it’s done.”
‘Flexible time’
Mr Azevêdo had worked with ministers on a handful of sticking points
individually and in small groups, before revised drafts were
circulated for all members to consider.
These were finally agreed by consensus on 7 December after meetings were
scheduled and rescheduled.
“In the WTO, the concept of time is a flexible one,” WTO spokesman Keith
Rockwell said when asked by journalists on 6 December about the meeting extending beyond its original schedule. “I
think it will be a long day.”
During those final critical hours, almost all members said the package
should be adopted in full, even if they were not completely happy with some
parts of it.
They said the package was needed because of the benefits it would give
directly, but also because it would reinvigorate the WTO and its trading
system, and provide the momentum to conclude the Doha Round, which was launched
in 2001 and has seen little progress since 2008 until work intensified on the
Bali Package this year.
However a small group of countries — Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela —
recorded serious reservations about what they considered to be imbalances in
the package in favour of richer countries, and the absence of provisions barrng
discrimination in the form of trade embargoes on goods in transit.
Their concern about embargoes delayed consensus on the package until a
compromise was struck in the form of a sentence upholding the principle of
non-discrimination in goods in transit was added to the final declaration.
The Bali Package has sometimes been described as the first major agreement
among WTO members since it was formed in 1995 under agreements from the 1986-94
Uruguay Round negotiations. The most significant for global commerce is the trade facilitation part of the package, which is about cutting red tape and speeding up port
clearances.
Much of the rest of the package focuses on various issues related to development, including food security in developing countries and cotton and a number of other provisions for least developed countries.
The package also includes a political commitment to reduce export subsidies
in agriculture and keep them at low levels, and to reduce obstacles to trade when
agricultural products are imported through quotas.
The trade facilitation decision is a multilateral deal to simplify customs
procedures by reducing costs and improving their speed and efficiency. It will
be a legally binding agreement and is one of the biggest reforms of the WTO since
its establishment in 1995 — other agreements struck since then are on financial
services and telecommunications, and among a subset of WTO members, and
agreement on free trade in information technology products.
The objectives are: to speed up customs procedures; make trade easier,
faster and cheaper; provide clarity, efficiency and transparency; reduce
bureaucracy and corruption, and use technological advances. It also has
provisions on goods in transit, an issue particularly of interest to landlocked
countries seeking to trade through ports in neighbouring countries.
Part of the deal involves assistance for developing and least developed
countries to update their infrastructure, train customs officials, or for any
other cost associated with implementing the agreement.
The benefits to the world economy are calculated to be between $ 400
billion and $1 trillion by reducing costs of trade by between 10% and 15%,
increasing trade flows and revenue collection, creating a stable business
environment and attracting foreign investment.
The text adopted in Bali is not final, although the substance will not
change. It will be checked and corrected to ensure the language is legally
correct, aiming for the General Council to adopt it by 31 July 2014.
Agriculture and cotton
Agreement on the agriculture part of the Bali Package required sorting out
two issues. Much of the focus was on shielding public
stockholding programmes for food security in
developing countries, so that they would not be challenged legally even if a
country’s agreed limits for trade-distorting domestic support were breached.
The proposed solution will be interim, and much of the discussion was about
what would happen at the end of the interim period. The outcome of
consultations was for the interim solution to exist until a permanent one is
agreed, with a work programme set up aiming to produce a permanent solution in
four years.
The other issue was about “tariff quota
administration“, how a specific type of
import quota (a “tariff quota” where volumes inside the quota have a lower
duty) is to be handled when the quota is persistently under-filled. Members
have agreed on a combination of consultation and providing information when
quotas are under-filled. The one remaining issue to be settled was which
countries would reserve the right not to apply the system after six years: they
will be Barbados, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and the US.
Meanwhile, three texts remained unchanged from the versions negotiated in
Geneva. One is on adding some development and land-use programmes to the list of general services that are candidates for being allowed without limit because they cause
little trade distortion.
Another is a strong political statement to ensure export subsidies and
other measures with similar effect are low. A
third deals with improving market access for cotton products from least developed countries, and with development assistance
for production in those countries.
Four documents remained unchanged from their Geneva versions.
- Duty-free, quota-free access for least developed countries to export to richer countries’ markets. Many countries have already implemented this, and the decision says countries that have not done so for at least 97% of products “shall seek to” improve the number of products covered.
- Simplified preferential rules of origin for least developed countries, making it easier for these countries to identify products as their own goods, and qualify for preferential treatment in importing countries.
- A “services waiver”, allowing least developed countries preferential access to richer countries’ services markets.
- A “monitoring mechanism” consisting of meetings and other methods for monitoring special treatment given to developing countries.
The Ministerial Conference adopted five decisions on the WTO’s regular
work. They can be found here. They are the following:
In intellectual property, members agreed not to bring “non-violation” cases
to the WTO dispute settlement process — “non-violation“ is shorthand for the technical question of whether there can be legal
grounds for complaint about loss of an expected right under the WTO’s
intellectual property agreement, even when the agreement has not been violated.
A similar extension was agreed in electronic commerce, members agreed not to charge import duties on electronic transmissions.
The Work Programme also encourages continued discussions on electronic commerce
in relation to commercial issues, development and new technology.
Ministers decided to give special consideration to issues of small economies. Ministers instructed the Committee on Trade and Development to consider
proposals on small economies and make recommendations to the General Council.
Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to Aid for Trade, an initiative that assists developing countries, and in particular least
developed countries, trade. They welcomed progress on Aid for Trade since its
launch in 2005 and mandated the Director-General to continue support of the
programme.
Ministers directed their Geneva delegations to continue examining the link
between trade and transfer of technology and make possible recommendations on
steps that might be taken to increase flows of technology to developing
countries. The mandate was given at the 2001 Doha declaration.
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