The Norwegian Ambassador to the WTO, H.E. Mr. Eirik Glenne, made the following statement at the meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee on 30 November 2007.
13/12/2007 :: Mr. Chairman,
Thank you for your statement on where we are at present in the DDA. As others we concur with your assessment, Chair. Like Brazil and Turkey, we also welcome your announcement that a paper on Rules is forthcoming soon.
Chair, I would also like to express our support for the negotiating process for the next three months that you have just outlined. Like others we also welcome and appreciate your firm emphasis that we will continue on the path of a substance driven process, not one based on deadlines. So far in these negotiations deadlines have not served us particularly well, to put it that way. Furthermore, I believe it would be difficult to find anyone in this room who is not fully aware of the urgency of the matter at hand.
I would also like to support your suggestion for how to best handle the question of Ministerial involvement. We all know from experience that such involvement can only be useful and decisive when the timing is right.
Third, important as they are, AG and NAMA do not constitute the only elements of interest to us and many others in these negotiations. Therefore we believe that the negotiations should bring all elements in the Single Undertaking to a state in which it is possible for members to make an assessment and have as clear an understanding as possible of the level of ambition that will result from the negotiations at the time we are supposed to agree on modalities for AG and NAMA. We therefore fully subscribed to your statement at the last TNC chair. Fact is, we still do. Last July you said that “The Round is a single undertaking covering a broad agenda with development at its heart.” You went on to say that when we returned this autumn the focus should not be exclusively on AG and NAMA. Furthermore: “Participants would need to achieve a commensurate level of progress in other areas of the negotiations, in line with the full Doha mandates, the July 2004 Decision and the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.” This, in your view, was the only possible path to an ambitious, balanced and development-oriented outcome to the Round. What I heard from you to day on this very important issue, Chair, I interpret to be consistent with the statement I have just referred to.
Finally a word of caution, we are at risk if we are too general. I know at least one sport in which the time problem is solved through the sudden-death rule. Let’s hope we can avoid that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.