Joint EU position and EC mandate for WTO ministerial conference to be reached at GAERC meetings

On 18 July in Brussels and on 21 July in Geneva, Foreign Ministry State Secretary Normans Penke will take part in extraordinary sessions of the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) on the negotiation round of the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The GAERC meetings in Geneva on the negotiations of the Doha Development Agenda will continue until 25 July.

The aim of the meetings is to reach an agreement for a joint EU position and a mandate of the European Commission (EC) for a ministerial conference of the WTO. The latter will take place on 21 July (to be continued over the following days) with the objective of agreeing on negotiation texts in the key open issues of the Doha Development Agenda, which are a reform of agricultural policies and market accessibility for manufactured goods. This aim is to conclude this round of negotiations by the end of 2008.  

The negotiations of the Doha Development Agenda among WTO member states were commenced in 2001 in order to reduce trade barriers globally. The prevailing subjects of negotiations are a further liberalisation of the market of agricultural and manufactured goods and services, especially regulations for an increasing openness of the markets of developing and least developed states, as well as an improvement in the existing WTO regulations.

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