Pascal Lamy to focus on Agri and NAMA

TRADE NEGOTIATIONS COMMITTEE
Lamy urges “maximum effort” for July meeting of ministers
Director-General Pascal Lamy, at an informal meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee on 27 June 2008, urged “maximum effort from everyone over the next weeks” to ensure a productive meeting of a number of ministers scheduled for the week of 21 July 2008. He said the immediate challenge is to make progress that “will provide a basis for improved texts in Agriculture and NAMA”.
Exerpts of speech
The focus now is, as I said earlier, to create convergence on Agriculture and NAMA so that the Chairs can prepare texts for ministerial consideration, either with areas where full convergence has been achieved, or with straight choices for Ministers. This means a very intensive phase of work in these areas which should culminate in the circulation of the revised texts. Obviously once the texts are out, you and your capitals will need some time to consider them. There will also be an opportunity for the full membership to react to them before we move to the final intensive phase of preparing issues for consideration by Ministers.
In particular, I believe that it will be important for me to continue with my process of consultations, which will increase in intensity and move from being more of an information exchange, towards focusing more on the substance of the topics, to adequately prepare for a ministerial discussion. I see these horizontal consultations with ambassadors and Senior Officials as key to proper preparations for a successful outcome.
Now, the timing. We are now at the end of June, so the end of July is in one month. We need a timeline to manage expectations if we are to do the deal in July, and in my view, we have to plan on a number of Ministers meeting here in the week starting 21 July. I would recommend that they be here a couple of days before in order to warm up, have bilaterals and prepare the ground.
In line with the importance we all attach to transparency and inclusiveness, the process that week will follow the pattern that has worked in the past — concentric circles of consultations with constant communication among them. This means that there will be informal meetings at the level of Head of Delegation, which will serve both to guarantee transparency and to help build consensus. I will supplement them with continuing dialogue with the regional and other groups as well as with the green room. Time will also be set aside for Group meetings and consultations.
27 June 2008