Greens at the WTO in Hong Kong
by Catherine Grèze
European Greens representative to the Global Greens

The 6th Inter-Governmental Conference on World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Hong Kong from December 12-20, 2005. The WTO, which was set up 10 years ago, had witnessed a promising evolution in 2002 when, in Doha, it clearly asserted that world trade should be linked to development. What happened in Hong Kong? What role can Greens play in this kind of conference? What is our task?

After their Seattle and Cancun failures, what was at stake for the "rich" countries of the North in Hong Kong-or rather the industrial multinational groups of the North-was gaining a wider opening of the markets of the South, to sell more and enable production of their goods at lower costs, with the attendant negative consequences of delocalization. Their second objective was to make the "less advanced countries" swallow the GATTS (General Agreement on Trade of Services), which deals with opening of banking, insurance, transportation, tourism and water services sectors. 

WTO Hands Off Our Food! - MEP Caroline Lucas (center) presented a basket of organic food stuffs to WTO Director Pascal Lamy (left) at the March 2006 meeting in Hong Kong. Joining Lucas were leaders of  Green and fair trade movements from around the world, including (left to right) Vandana Shiva, Susan George and Jose Bove (far right). Photo by FOEI

For the so-called "less developed countries," the goal was lowering subsidies and artificial protections of the wealthiest countries so that their agricultural products could compete, and resist the "dumping by the North." (e.g.: Mali, despite very low production costs, cannot compete with the United States cotton exports because of the subsidies granted to American cotton belt farmers).

Negotiations often seemed a caricature combined with a lack of transparency. In response, NGOs offered the European Commissioner a huge well-wrapped present-empty-reflecting the non-binding commitments, and distant delivery dates of the EU-US-proposed "Package for Aid to Development." 

With NGO proposals ignored, NGO representatives preferred no agreement to a bad agreement. Ultimately, the common interests of multinationals and corporations won out. China kept quiet under pretense of being a Third World defender, its own interests actually not so far away from those of the EU and the US since developing a market economy and joining the WTO a few years ago. Unity which had prevailed between the least developed countries and the emerging countries (Brazil, Argentina, China, India, South Africa) in earlier conferences came to an end, with multinational producers of soya, sugar and meat winning out against the interest of the small farmers all over the world. The poorest nations were given a non-binding promise that Northern exports would receive fewer subsidies beginning in 2013. 

China: example of the inevitable failure of the WTO pattern for our Earth

Every Chinese citizen wants a decent standard of living. Yet China's hyper-accelerated form of economic development reveals the impossible task for the Earth to sustain such development and, more generally, the pattern of development put forward by WTO. In the short term, the colonial pattern is taking over again in Africa and Latin America: huge exports of raw materials and agricultural products leave in exchange for imports of manufactured goods, while low-wage production entails social tension. One hundred fifty million unemployed Chinese may be contained today, at the price of strict social control and a totalitarian regime. But it could prove impossible to prevent huge social clashes when growth slows down. This applies to China as well as to the emerging countries, where the small farmers see their land disappear for the benefit of massive production of soya and sugar.

Greens in Hong Kong: a mixed evaluation

The Green Group in the European Parliament was represented by its two MEPs taking part in the official delegation: Caroline Lucas (UK) and Marie-Hélène Aubert (France) as well as by Alain Lipietz (France), Jill Evans (UK) and Frithjof Schmidt (Germany); and two collaborators: Gaby Küppers and Martin Koehler who took in charge the huge coordination work. The European Green Party was represented by Catherine Grèze of the Global Green Coordination.

A big delegation of National Parliamentarians came from Germany and Austria. Together with German Green Spokesperson Claudia Roth were fellow German Greens Thilo Hoppe, Bärbel Höhn and Ulrike Höfken, as well as Heidi Rest-Hinterseer from Austria. Some national Green parties had sent representatives: Germany, France, Scotland, and Hungary. From Asia, only the Green parties of Nepal and Taiwan had a representative. 

The most visible team was certainly that of the Green-leaning Henrich Boell Foundation, with some 20 collaborators coordinated by Barbara Unmüssig. The main NGOs included ATTAC, Via Campesina, Public Citizen, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others.

On one hand, only a small number of national Green parties sent representatives (Germany, France, Austria, Great Britain, Taiwan, Nepal) The cost of such a trip and the forecast failure of the conference may have been the reason. However, usually Italians, Belgians, Swiss, Portuguese are present.

On the other hand the very strong involvement of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the big delegation of German MPs, and the presence of Greens in the NGO meetings was well received, leading to valuable exchanges with Hong Kong and Chinese civil society, trade unionists, human rights NGOs, Greenpeace, economists and others. Greens were the only political party taking part as such and were very visible in the everyday debriefing meeting.

The presence of the Greens in Hong Kong is coherent with the party's political strategy of the past years: be active both in the institutions, with MEPs in the official delegation trying to influence -with great difficulties it is true-parliamentarians and, "on the ground" at the side of NGOs, demonstrators and civil society. 

A working but gloomy atmosphere: Besides the Greens, activists' presence in Hong Kong was weak-due to a difficult, long and expensive journey as well as drastic visa control for several thousands, including the mass of Korean farmers. The atmosphere was that of deception with almost no communication whatsoever between the Officials inside the negotiation bunker and the NGOs and demonstrators outside. 

The Green perspective is and will be to convey a message not only of warning but also information and their claim will be that global negotiations stop to be dealt with in pieces: with human rights in Geneva, climate change and environment in Kyoto or Montreal and trade in Hong Kong. Our perspective must be to convince parliamentarians that any multilateral trade negotiation must integrate the dramatic environmental, energy, health consequences as well as the social ones… that is, if we want a future for our earth.

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