The Forum > Article Comments > The Cairns Group: a 20th anniversary back-slapping exercise? > Comments
The Cairns Group: a 20th anniversary back-slapping exercise? : Comments
By Graham Cooke, published 18/9/2006Australia's 'spaghetti bowl approach of individual free trade agreements' may prove they have not been worth the trouble.
- Pages:
-
- Page 1
-
- All
- Pages:
-
- Page 1
-
- All
The proposed Cairns Group summit meeting to be held in Cairns on 20-22 September 2006 is at best a face-saving exercise by the Federal Government for its failure to recognise the futility of the WTO's globalisation of world markets.
It is now almost a certainty that the Doha round of trade talks, which have been on life support for the last few years, can officially be declared as dead.
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy announced on 24 July 2006 that he would recommend to the WTO General Council that negotiations be suspended for an indefinite period following the breakdown of talks between Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States in Geneva.
The key issue was the unwillingness of the US and the European Union, who blamed each other for the impasse, to reduce barriers to agricultural imports from the developing world.
Australia's Trade Minister Mark Vaile has been attempting to keep the round alive for years but it is now clear that the major players, the United States and Europe have failed to agree on the matter of farm subsidies and the talks have collapsed. Its seems as though the repeated deferrals were simply a ploy to give the likes of our Trade Minister hope while he concluded the Australian-American Free Trade Agreement and it is now apparent that at no time did either the U.S. or the E.U. intend to make concessions.
To read the FULL article…
http://www.johnston-independent.com/doha.html#.
Selwyn Johnston
Leichhardt Independent – 2007
Federal Electorate – Far North Queensland