1. USFTA campaign accelerates in the media
2. EU shifts stance on deadlocked WTO trade talks

1. USFTA campaign accelerates in the media

There has been good media coverage of the USFTA campaign over the last two weeks.

The rally on the USFTA outside Parliament House in Canberra on October 27 attracted over 200 people. Speakers included Senators Gavin Marshall from the ALP, Andrew Murray, Democrats Leader Democrats and Kerry Nettle from the Greens, plus actor Tina Bursill , ACTU Vice President Doug Cameron and Dr Alison Healey from the Grail Christian Women's Movement. Sharan Burrow and the MEAA also did media events in Melbourne and Sydney .

The rally and speakers received good media coverage on ABC and SBC TV and Radio news, ABC PM, and in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Australian Financial Review. There were op eds and letters to the editor in several papers. There was a good story on the ABC TV 7.30 Report on October 28 about the continuing efforts by pharmaceutical companies to use the USFTA negotiations to get higher prices for medicines.

Liberty Victoria and the Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace got good media coverage for their report showing how the investor state complaints process under the North American Free Trade Agreement have been used to challenge environmental and social legislation and sue governments for damages. The report is available at www.ccjdp.org

On 3 November a group of seven US Congress members wrote to US Trade Representative Zoellick opposing such a process in the Australia US FTA, arguing it was unnecessary and created " a separate and privileged judicial system for multinational companies".

The government faced many questions in parliament form the ALP, Democrats and Greens, and ALP Shadow Trade Minister Stephen Conroy critically questioned the negotiators in the Senate Estimates hearings on November 6 about the PBS, Australian content in media and the investor state complaints process.

The negotiators admitted on October 31 that they were still far from agreement. The US offers on agricultural access have so far been unacceptable. The US is still pursuing higher prices for medicines, less protection for Australian media content, changes to quarantine, food labelling the Foreign Investment Review Board and the right of corporations to challenge laws and sue governments.

All of these issues are supposed to be settled at the final round of negotiations from December 1 in Washington. AFTINET's statement on the USFTA has been signed by a wide range of organisations and thousands of individuals and will be launched at a media conference on November 24. We will be linking with US groups for activities in Washington in December.

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2. EU shifts stance on deadlocked WTO trade talks

By Tobias Buck in Brussels, Financial Times; Nov 06, 2003

In an attempt to remove one of the most thorny obstacles to restarting the stalled round of global trade talks, the European Union is preparing a significant shift in its position on four hotly contested issues that have long bedevilled the World Trade Organisation. The union is discussing a plan by the European Commission to soften its position on the so-called Singapore issues: rules on investment, competition, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation.

A fierce disagreement over these issues between developing countries on the one side and the EU, Japan and South Korea on the other had in September sparked the collapse of a crucial WTO ministerial meeting in Cancún, Mexico. The breakdown of the Cancún meeting was widely seen as one of the biggest setbacks for the international trade system in recent years, and has set off a bout of soul-searching and recriminations among the WTO's 148 members.

Among other things, Brussels was criticised by some developing countries and non-governmental organisations for its insistence on holding discussions on the Singapore issues, which are unpopular among poorer countries. These critics insist that developing countries lack the administrative capacities to implement such rules.

In a bid to counter these attacks, the European Commission, which negotiates trade matters on behalf of the EU member states, has now indicated that it accepts that not all WTO members would have to implement an eventual deal on the Singapore issues. Instead, it wants to proceed on a voluntary basis, for example by forming a separate group of WTO members that would negotiate a deal on one or more Singapore issues, which the more sceptical countries could join at a later date.

This shift in position is set out in a Commission memorandum described as an "options paper", a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times. Although it is officially intended only to form the basis for a debate among EU member states, it makes clear the Commission's own preferences. While the paper makes clear that the EU is not prepared to give up talks on the Singapore issues within the WTO, it says Brussels should no longer make a global trade agreement conditional on a deal on the four issues. This amounts to a break with the important WTO rule that all 148 members have to agree to all elements of a final deal for the agreement to enter into force.

In addition, Brussels is suggesting that the four issues should be negotiated separately, reflecting the fact that topics such as investment rules and competition are more controversial than the other two. "It would seem more sensible for WTO members now to take decisions on each Singapore issue on the basis of the merits of each issue," the paper states.

On investment and competition, the Commission paper mulls two different approaches. According to one, negotiations on these issues would involve all WTO members, but would leave members free to choose at the end whether they want to sign up or not. The other scenario would see only a limited number of WTO members negotiate their own separate deal from the outset - which could then be joined by others at a later date.

With regard to trade facilitation, the paper argues that there is a stronger case for involving all WTO members in an agreement, though it insists that "we should keep an open mind". On transparency in government procurement, the Commission again argues that it would be "logical" to aim for a fully multilateral agreement, though it concedes: "That logic is not shared by all."

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