Protesters demonstrate for the third day of the
WTO summit in Hong Kong
Photograph: Bullit Marquez/AP
Things are definitely hotting up here today, the atmosphere much more tense, and the war of words – especially between the EU and US – definitely escalating, writes Caroline Lucas.
The two key issues that everyone is talking about are the so-called development package, and the extremely controversial services negotiations – and the EU's strategy appears to be to try to get early agreement on the former in order to pave the way to the latter.
The development package is currently being discussed in "green room" meetings (ie selective – and undemocratic - negotiating meetings among the key players), and is based on a set of measures supposedly designed to help the least developed countries.
Mind you, the very fact that the EU and US have proposed such a package gives the lie to any notion that this will be a development round, in which the objective of every part of the agreement is meant to address the needs of poorer countries.
The only reason a development round would need a development package bolted onto it is if the round itself is failing to live up to the promises the rich countries made at Doha in 2001.
I spend much of the day discussing these issues with NGOs, taking part in both a packed press conference on the subject, and then a further strategy meeting.
All of us seem agreed that, in reality, the package risks being seen as little more than a bribe or sweetener to try to distract the developing countries from the fact that the rest of the round's proposals are hugely damaging in terms of their development impact.
It gets worse. As far as the EU is concerned, the majority of the measures outlined in the package are either
commitments already made, or promises impossible to deliver.
It frankly beggars belief, for example, that the European Commission can seriously pledge to deliver an extra €1bn for the aid-for-trade package at a time when the EU budget is under unprecedented attack.
Unless, of course, the money turns out to be diverted from existing aid budgets or, even more destructively, coming from loans and grants that will need to be repaid. In which case, it won't just be a distracting bribe, it will be an absolute scandal.
But, lest you think my criticism of the EU has been unbalanced in my last few postings, let me – in the interests of equity if nothing else – give you a short overview of the US position on this subject.
First of all, US trade representative Rob Portman's promise yesterday to more than double US grant contributions to aid for trade is, in the small print "subject to the president's budget request being approved and developing countries prioritising trade in their development plans".
First, the president's budget requests are almost never simply approved! Moreover, the US Congress is in a deep budget crisis, and the likelihood that it will be agreed is hovering around zero.
Second, the aid will only be forthcoming if poorer countries agree to give "priority" to trade issues in their development strategies.
In other words, to skew their economies still further to the very free trade which, in many cases, is largely responsible for their impoverishment - they can have the sweet, but they have to drink the poison first.
And finally, with respect to the pledge on zero tariff quotas, the US trade representative has absolutely no authority to promise this, since it can't be delivered without a vote in Congress!
No wonder the atmosphere is getting tense. Frustration is growing among the African delegations in particular. Just as I'm leaving a strategy meeting, a statement by African MPs is pushed into my hands.
It's unusually strongly worded, criticising the untransparent green room process - "We are concerned that other WTO members are expected to wait for the outcome of these illegal, untransparent and exclusive processes and then rubber-stamp them" - and ending with an attack on the "behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to compromise, disorient and divide the African group through selective and unilateral invitations to 'informal consultations'".
At lunchtime (in name, at least – I haven't worked out when you're supposed to find time to get food here) I find myself alongside French farmer and activist Jose Bove and Indian campaigner and academic Vandana Shiva in a protest against GMOs.
A petition is handed to the WTO's deputy director general, Alejandro Jara, (the DG, Pascal Lamy, having pulled out at the last moment), signed by organisations representing more than 60 million people around the world.
The protest stems from growing concerns that the WTO dispute panel is about to rule against the EU's earlier GM moratorium, making it impossible for citizens and governments to reject GM crops in future.
My role in the protest is to present Mr Jara with a basket full of organic fruit and vegetables, to demonstrate the alternative kind of agriculture which is put at risk by widespread GM contamination.
Fighting my temptation to eat some of my props, I present him with a full basket, and ask him to convey it (intact) to Mr Lamy, along with our message.
In the afternoon, I've been asked by Friends of the Earth to chair a meeting on the impact of the negotiations on NAMA (non agricultural market access) on natural resources and livelihoods.
Of particular concern is the fact that the negotiations may be used to restrict the ability of governments to legislate in these areas.
FoE has identified no less than 212 laws and regulations relating to the environment and health standards that have been notified by governments as "barriers to trade", and are therefore vulnerable to attack.
The days ends with my chairing another meeting, this time at the request of a group of animal welfare organisations, focusing on so-called "non-trade concerns" in WTO jargon, which include animal welfare.
The very fact that stamping out animal cruelty is described as a "non-trade concern" demonstrates the extent to which international trade dominates the politics of our time – and the extent to which we must all challenge newspeak in order to make sense of it all and seek to change it.
*Caroline Lucas is the Green party MEP for south-east England. Read her blog posts from yesterday and Tuesday
