The Singapore issues

Negotiations about negotiations with a caveat

Trust opposition political parties to create a controversy where none exists. It’s a rule that applies to all political parties in India whenever and wherever they are in opposition. What they say and do in office, they oppose in the opposition. So it is now with the discussion on the Doha Ministerial Declaration of the World Trade Organisation. The very same Indian National Congress which signed on the dotted line at Marrakesh, giving its imprimatur to the conclusion of the Uruguay Round negotiations and the creation of the WTO, has now stooped to criticise the National Democratic Alliance government for agreeing to what it opposed in opposition!

This after Congress president Sonia Gandhi publicly endorsed a new round of trade negotiations at a meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in New York. Congress spokesmen who charged union commerce minister Murasoli Maran with committing “harakiri” with his “implementation first” strategy are now criticising him for agreeing to a new round of negotiations. Mr Vishwanath Pratap Singh and his cronies in Uttar Pradesh are expected to criticise the government. Many of them behave like opposition leaders even when in government. Equally, the Left parties have reacted in a predictable manner. No curiosity there as to why China is celebrating its entry into the WTO on terms more onerous than what India has so far conceded, or on why Cuba finally abandoned its opposition to a new round and left India standing alone and tall.

Those who worry about India yielding ground on the so-called Singapore issues, namely trade and investment policy, trade and competition policy, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement, should derive comfort from the clarification issued by Mr Maran based on the official record of the proceedings of the Doha meeting as recorded by the Chairman of the General Council, the trade minister of Qatar. The official record makes it very clear that a decision on negotiating the Singapore issues would indeed have to be taken by explicit consensus “before negotiations” can proceed. Further, the record also clarifies that each member has the right to take a position on modalities that would prevent negotiations from proceeding after the Fifth Ministerial Meeting, until that member is prepared to join in an explicit consensus. This should set at rest fears that Doha has already sanctioned the launch of a new “comprehensive round”. What Doha has done is to facilitate negotiations about negotiations with a caveat. Mr Maran has done a good job given the political brief he carried not just from his government but from Parliament, which took a view in December 1999 supporting a limited round.