WTO: Hopes For Grand Redemption Fizzle Out As India Sticks To Fishing Demands

In a meeting of delegates in WTO, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said India would not bend on demands for extensive exceptions on a 20-year negotiation to curb harmful government fishery subsidies

As India stuck to its demands on several fronts during the third day of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) ministerial conference in Geneva, prospects for a grand redemption of the trade body fizzled out, Bloomberg reported.

In a meeting of delegates on Tuesday, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said that India would not bend on demands for extensive exceptions on a 20-year negotiation to curb harmful government fishery subsidies, according to a statement on his ministry’s website.

Goyal insisted members water down the WTO’s subsidy rules for government-backed food-purchasing programmes aimed at feeding poor citizens, the report said.

“The Indian delegation has raised everybody’s eyebrows,” Mexican Undersecretary of Foreign Trade Luz Maria de la Mora said in an interview. “You cannot come to a negotiating forum, particularly at this stage, making demands that they brand as non-negotiable.”

The tough stance by India could threaten a multi-year effort to conclude a package of small but symbolically important deals and may cement the view that the WTO is no longer a viable forum to address the shortcomings of international commerce.

“We are getting to the tough spot of the negotiations now,” WTO Spokesman Dan Pruzin said. “The not-so-good news is that we are running out of time. It is crunch time.”

The WTO has operated for more than a quarter century on the basis of consensus decision-making, meaning any one member’s veto can scuttle agreements. According to critics, that model is also why it’s been largely ineffective as a deal-making forum for much of the past decade.

Prior to Tuesday, many governments were hopeful that a fisheries agreement, which aims to help prevent overfishing of oceans, would be the WTO’s first multilateral accord in almost a decade.

However, India is seeking broad exemptions for its fishing industry, including a 25-year phase-in period and a 200-nautical-mile exclusion for its artisanal anglers. “We feel that without agreeing to the 25-year transition period, it will be impossible for us to finalise the negotiations, as policy space is essential for the long-term sustainable growth and prosperity of our low-income fishermen,” Goyal said.

European Union Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said, “There are countries which are taking some very strong positions, very far-reaching demands, which weakens the purpose of this agreement.”