SUPPLEMENTARY MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED BY
THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (S18)
You asked for a brief written update on how
the suspension of the Seattle meeting on the opening of a new
round of WTO negotiations would affect the subject matter of the
above Agriculture Committee inquiry.
Negotiations on agriculture were already mandated
by the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture to start in
January 2000 and to continue the process of liberalising agricultural
support and protection, taking into account the experience of
implementing the Agreement, its effects on world trade in agriculture,
non-trade concerns (not specified but will include the environment
and could also include farm animal welfare), special and differential
treatment for developing countries, and the objective of establishing
a fair and market-oriented trading system. These negotiations
will go ahead in spite of the failure to agree a wider agenda.
Clearly the negotiations will not have the initial
impetus or scope for trade-offs between different areas of negotiation
that being part of a wider Round would have given them, but the
underlying pressures for further liberalisation will still exist,
as described in the MAFF memorandum. The expiry of the Peace Clause
at the end of 2003 (also covered in the memorandum) should also
encourage substantive negotiations well before then.
The core part of the subject matter for the
inquiry is therefore still in place. There are however unlikely
to be negotiations within the WTO in the near future on the SPS
Agreement (which deals with food safety, animal and plant health
issues), or specifically on biotechnology. Wider rules on labelling
will still be examined in the course of a pre-scheduled review
of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, although
the prospects for agreeing any changes here outside of a Round
are not good.
13 December 1999
| 
