WTO chief says ‘cautiously optimistic’ ahead of high-stakes meet

• Chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala optimistic for “one or two deliverables”.
• World ministers to discuss Ukraine crisis, overfishing, and Covid vaccines.
• India has demanded a 25-year exemption, which critics say would be catastrophic.

The World Trade Organization’s chief expressed cautious optimism on Sunday as global trade ministers gathered to address food security issues such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, overfishing, and equitable access to Covid vaccines.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala acknowledged just hours before the start of the WTO’s first ministerial meeting in nearly five years that “the road will be bumpy and rocky, and there may be a few landmines along the way.”

She did, however, tell journalists that she was “cautiously optimistic that we’ll get one or two deliverables,” which she would consider a “success.”

With its first ministerial meeting in years, the WTO faces pressure to finally eke out long-sought trade deals and show unity amid the still raging pandemic and an impending global hunger crisis.

Top of the agenda as the four-day meeting kicks off is the toll Russia’s war in Ukraine, traditionally a breadbasket that feeds hundreds of millions of people, is having on food security.

EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the bloc had been “working hard with all the members to prepare a multilateral food security package,” and slammed Russia for “using food and grain as a weapon of war”.

The WTO is hoping to keep criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine to the first day of talks, when many of the more than 100 ministers due to attend are expected to issue blistering statements.

Read more:  WTO chief warns of global food crisis in wake of Ukraine conflict

But with many flatly refusing to negotiate directly with Moscow, there are fears this could bleed into the following days, when the WTO wants to focus on nailing down elusive trade deals.

“There is a real risk that things could go off the rails next week,” a Geneva-based diplomatic source said.

The tensions have not curbed Okonjo-Iweala’s zeal to press for agreements on a range of issues during the first ministerial gathering on her watch, especially as the global trade body strives to prove its worth after nearly a decade with no new large trade deals.

There is cautious optimism that countries could finally agree on banning subsidies that contribute to illegal and unregulated fishing, after more than 20 years of negotiations.

The WTO says talks have never been this close to the finish line, but diplomats remain cautious.

The negotiations “have made progress recently, but these remain difficult subjects,” a diplomatic source in Geneva told AFP.

One of the main sticking points has been so-called special and differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries, like major fishing nation India, which can request exemptions.

A draft text sent to the ministers for review proposes exemptions should not apply to member states accounting for an as yet undefined share of the global volume of fishing.

The duration of exemptions also remains undefined.

Environmental groups say anything beyond 10 years would be catastrophic. India has demanded a 25-year exemption.

“Twenty-five years is an unreasonable length of time,” Isabel Jarrett, head of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ project to end harmful fisheries subsidies, told AFP, warning so much leeway would be “devastating for fish stocks”.

Colombian Ambassador Santiago Wills, who chairs the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations, stressed the urgency of securing a deal.

“The longer we wait, the more the fish lose. And the more the fish lose, the more we all lose,” he said in a statement Saturday.

India however appears to be stubbornly sticking to its demands on fisheries and in other areas, jeopardising the chances of reaching deals since WTO agreements require full consensus backing.

“There is not a single issue that India is not blocking,” a Geneva-based ambassador said, singling out WTO reform and agriculture.

According to a source familiar with the negotiations for a food security text, “the Indians are still causing problems.”

Elvire Fabry, a senior research fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute, said India appeared eager to “throw more weight around” in international organizations, but warned that New Delhi could derail talks.

Read more: Marathon week of WTO talks aim to net fisheries deal