At the Böll Forum in Hong Kong, they talked with NGO activists and European politicians about future plans. Here, they discuss the results with Marc Engelhardt.

Frithjof Schmidt: The most important point was agreeing on an understanding of the issues at the end of the Doha Round – whether this is with some kind of compromise or failure. The WTO will continue to exist in some form or other but will work with different instruments. The question is: how can civil society work with the WTO in the coming years?

The NGO representatives quickly reached a consensus on the problems ahead. Over the past ten years, the emphasis has been on multilateral negotiations that have been used to achieve deregulation and liberalisation. In the future, there will be a stronger focus on bilateral negotiations, something some transition countries have been demanding for a long time. But this approach will particularly disadvantage the least developed countries. At Summits like this one they can act together. If they cease to be held in this manner, the LDCs will not be the only ones to need new actions and strategies.

Barbara Unmüßig: And of course multilateral negotiations also offer the NGOs greater room for manoeuvre and for inclusion. With bilateral negotiations it will be difficult for NGOs to exert the kind of influence they have currently. Bilateral negotiations will be conducted most frequently with countries where civil society is weak or non-existent. This means that critical monitoring is not available in these countries, while at the global multilateral level there is a more collective endeavour for analysis.

But we also have to take into consideration the success of the NGOs – from their own point of view, that of the farmers, the environment or the unions - in calling into question the basic assumption of the WTO that trade liberalisation automatically leads to gains in prosperity. At the same time there are of course differing interests and approaches within the South or the North, just as there are between the North and the South.

? This WTO summit – like the one in Cancún – was attended not just by stakeholders but also by thousands of farmers and fishermen, who travelled to the meeting to represent their own interests. What does that mean for a future strategy?

Frithjof Schmidt: This broad movement, such as the farmers in Korea or the fishermen of the Philippines, is absolutely to be welcomed. A global network has come about, made up of groups that communicate with each other, organise themselves and learn from each other. A kind of global civil society is emerging and that's a process that we should definitely support and promote.

? Does that apply to China too?

Frithjof Schmidt: Definitely not to civil society in mainland China, which to all practical purposes does not exist. The unions are one example of that: independent trade unions are banned in China and are persecuted with the full repressive force of the political and intelligence apparatus. The official unions, on the other hand, are purely instruments of government policy. That makes the "cheap labour factor" – people working under unbelievably bad conditions – one element of the Chinese economic boom. In the language of the WTO this would be "massively distorted competition”. We would describe it as a massive violation of human and civil rights.

? What role can the Heinrich Böll Foundation play in this strategy in the coming years?

Barbara Unmüßig: The developing countries are presenting a united front in the negotiations as never before. At the same time, however, there are major internal differences. The relatively rich transition countries and the poorest states put forward differing demands. We as the Heinrich Böll Foundation, with a presence in countries like Mexico, India, South Africa or Brazil, try to strengthen the network between the different southern civil societies. For the same reason, information transfer is also important to us: what does it mean if Brazil begins to invest more heavily in African countries? What does it mean for the exploitation of natural resources if China signs wide-ranging contracts with Latin-American states to mine copper and other commodities? We need to increase our understanding of such South-South relationships, economically and politically.

It is also the task of the Foundation to ensure a strategy debate. We must all adjust to a new balance of power in which it is no longer simply "the South" against "the North". In that context we must also continue the trialogue with all the different interest groups. It is not as if the alternative proposals suggested by civil society have entered the heads of all the world bankers, IMF people or WTO delegates. We must continue to ensure that our points of view and opinions are conveyed to the other side.

? What role can the EU play in future?

Frithjof Schmidt: The EU acted very clumsily in Hong Kong and was also a prisoner of internal contradictions. On the agriculture issue many member states wanted to make much greater concessions to the South but big countries like France rejected that. On the other hand, the EU made very far-reaching demands of the countries of the South when it came to agreements outside of agriculture. That earned the EU the role of bogeyman, which to some extent is undeserved – for instance in comparison to the USA.

That demonstrates how poorly the EU behaved. We will have to discuss these internal contradictions later in the European Parliament with the Commission and the Council of Ministers.

? Should civil society perhaps even support the WTO in the future with respect to bilateral negotiations?

Barbara Unmüßig: I will always support the belief that the reconciliation of interests can be better served in a multilateral framework than in bilateral negotiations. But we must be clear that even with multilateral trade talks it all depends on the content! If the WTO continues to focus on trade liberalisation which does not take into account the need for special protection for population groups and economies, we cannot unreservedly endorse the forum. 

That's why the central issue is how multilateralism develops in the trade talks. We must now conduct a post-Hong Kong debate about what trade rules are needed to promote environmentally and socially oriented development. Certainly not the current rules, Hong Kong has shown that. More and more people have begun to question the WTO dogma of trade liberalisation at any price.