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The EU is one of the main proponents of further trade liberalisation and is strongly pushing for the inclusion of issues such as investment, environmental standards and competition policy into the WTO. However, there is strong opposition to the EU's position from other countries including many countries in the South and the US, which partly caused the failure of the WTO ministerial in Seattle in November 1999.

The hot topic is agriculture. The EU is bound by the Common Agricultural Policy which includes extensive subsidies to the agricultural sector in member states. Naturally the EU has not been pushing hard for liberalisation in this case. A comprehensive trade round would therefore be advantageous as the EU could potentially play off any losses in negotiations on agriculture against gains in other sectors.

The G77 (the main group of Southern countries), supported by Fern and other NGOs, made several strong statements opposing a new trade round claiming the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) has brought few benefits and in some cases has caused negative effects. They are thus calling for 'Review, repair and Reform' of the WTO and have stated that any new round should right existing imbalances (see http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wto99-12.htm for more information).

FERN organises and co-ordinates meetings between NGOs and the European Commission to exchange views and inform Commission officials about the impact of trade agreements on forests and forest peoples.

The EU's position on tariff and non-tariff measures
The EU has always opposed acceleration of tariff liberalisation as promoted by the Advanced Tariff Liberalisation (ATL) proposal of APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation. The European forest based industries are not in favour of the ATL proposal but are in favour of tariff liberalisation as part of a new trade round that: "includes improved market access covering reduction of non tariff barriers and tariffs, further trade facilitation as well as new issue such as trade and environment, competition and investment which will have a much greater influence on future trade than the traditional tariffs".

This position is understandable as labour and related costs in Europe are considerably higher than in the US or Canada. As the ATL proposal would have quite likely benefited ‘low cost’ countries more than ‘high cost’ countries, this is one of the reasons for industry’s lack of enthusiasm for the ATL proposal. Nevertheless the EU and its forest based industry is, and has always been, in favour of further tariff liberalisation in general and is a strong proponent of market access as part of a new trade round.

The European Commission has made clear that it wishes to include NTMs in trade negotiations; at the same time, however, it risks running into trouble regarding WTO compatibility over its own eco-label scheme. According to the database created by the Commission on trade-distorting measures, non-tariff barriers to trade in forest products include import prohibitions and quotas, export restrictions such as log export bans, state trading enterprises, standards and other technical requirements, local content schemes and subsidies. The EU position to include NTMs in market access negotiations at the WTO was reiterated in the EU’s official submission on trade at the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests in New York (February 2000).

A new round of trade negotiations
The EU finally got its new trade round at the Doha Ministerial meeting (2001). It is widely accepted that the European agenda dominated the final declaration. There are several negotiation areas that will have an impact on forests:

• Market access for non-agricultural goods
Forests are categorized purely as an industrial product and no special attention will be paid to their fragile ecosystems. Tariffs, tariff peaks and non tariff barriers will all come under the hammer of the trade negotiators and in particular the EU despite their much publicised commitment to the environment.

• Trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS)
The TRIPS Council – the WTO body in charge of the implementation of the TRIPS agreement – must look at the relationship between TRIPS and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the protection of traditional knowledge. This is especially important since northern companies are resorting to biopiracy and patenting age old knowledge developed by peoples from southern countries.

• Trade and Investment
Although the EU did not get investment negotiations into the new round, it did secure a 'clarification of the issues' at the next ministerial, and the EU will continue to push the issue on to the agenda. Investment has important implications as the negotiation will aim at liberalizing the access of foreign direct investment and could prevent countries taking measures to ensure sustainable development if they are seen to contravene easy access by foreign companies. Rather than liberalization, a standard to ensure that investment does not lead to wanton forest destruction and illegal logging is needed.

• Trade and Environment
Negotiations on the relationship between the WTO and multilateral environment agreements (MEAs) such as the CBD and the Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place over the coming years. NGOs want to ensure that MEAS have the same standing as the WTO. For this reason they insist that the issue of non parties to MEAs be addressed thus ensuring that non signatory countries do not take cases that would undermine environment conventions to the WTO dispute settlement panel. The WTO Committee on Trade and Environment has also been instructed to look into the issue of labeling requirements for environmental purposes. This Committee will then report back to the next ministerial meeting and the necessity of negotiations will be assessed.