From 13-18 December the 6 th WTO Ministerial Conference will be held in HongKong in order to advance the conclusion of the Doha round of trade negotiations. The European Union has been a leading force in the WTO to push for further market opening in industrial goods, natural resources, services and trade facilitation. These negotiations are predicted to have wide spread effects on environmental sustainability, development, human rights and gender inequality in both industrialised countries as well as in developing countries.

A specific concern is the natural resource and the gender impact of the Doha negotiations. Current liberalisation negotiations put effectively all publicly owned natural resources up for either partial or full trade liberalisation, including in environmentally and gender sensitive sectors such as forestry, fisheries, agriculture, water and energy. Local communities, small farmers and fisher folks and more specifically women farmers/fisher and Indigenous Peoples, who have managed these resources sustainably for generations, could lose from a liberalisation process. Natural resources are threatened to be plundered at unsustainable rates at the expense of future generations. It is an imperative for global justice, leaving sufficient resources for current and future generations in the North and the South to meet the needs of their population, whilst at the same time preserving biodiversity. However, the EU’s WTO position currently pushes for no exclusion of environmentally sensitive sectors in the non agricultural market access (NAMA) and services negotiations.

Additionally, many NGOs believe the services negotiations being pushed by the EU pose a threat to the ability of countries to regulate basic services in the pursuit of social and development goals. The NAMA negotiations could further deepen the deindustrialisation and environmental crisis in developing countries. Furthermore, the EU position also links negotiations to open markets in services, industrial goods and natural resources to offering cuts in EU agricultural subsidies which are necessary in order to stop the dumping of subsidised agricultural products . Moreover, agricultural negotiations are still heading towards the further opening of local markets to cheap imports and the dismantling of measures at the expense of sustainable family farmers, consumers and the environment.

Will the EU’s position aggravate the already existing ecological and poverty crisis? Or will the EU lead the way for a sustainable, just, gender fair trading system?

With Peter Mandelson as EU trade commissioner in the EU 25 and in the run up of HongKong the hearing will provide political space in Brussels for civil society representatives from the North and the South and representatives from the EU, notably from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the trade committee 133 to come to a constructive dialogue and proposals for improved trade rules that work for the poor, indigenous people, the environment and gender equality.

More information on the conference and registration can be found here.

NGO-Statement: "The EU's Trade Agenda: Serving corporate interests at th expense of development, environment and human rights"