Glenys Kinnock on her way to the
WTO talks in Hong KongIt's not my first time in Hong Kong and it's not my first time at WTO talks, but it is the first time the stakes have seemed quite so high, writes Glenys Kinnock. This week was meant to be the celebratory climax of the Make Poverty History year - instead the mood in Hong Kong is one of trepidation.
As soon as you exit the plane and enter the airport the atmosphere is heavy - not least due to the high security presence. Around 11,000 people, including 6,000 delegates, 2,000 representatives of non-governmental organisations, 3,000 journalists – and me - have all descended on the city for the WTO talks. With 9,000 police officers deployed to deal with the expected 10,000 anti-globalisation activists, it's the city's largest-ever security operation, and it shows.
Local newspapers are full of stories of crews glueing sidewalk bricks to prevent them being used as missiles and covering pedestrian overpasses with mesh so nothing can be hurled onto the streets below.
Of course, these tensions are not new. I vividly remember being interviewed by Channel 4 news at the WTO in Seattle in 1999 while behind me tear gas and rubber bullets were being unleashed. And just like in Seattle and Cancun in 2003, the expected tensions on the streets will be more than mirrored by the fraught atmosphere inside the negotiating rooms. Although the negotiators have managed to lower the level of ambition before the event, there is still a palpable sense of anxiety.
I've only just emerged from a 12-hour flight but I've got to hit the ground running. My first task is to buy a new mobile phone SIM card – to ensure I can communicate with ease and save an 80p surcharge each time I make a call! Then it's off to a reception being held by the UK EU presidency - not to glug wine but to track down colleagues from the developing countries and swap telephone numbers before the wrangling really gets going tomorrow.
As co-president of the African, Caribbean and Pacific – EU joint parliamentary assembly, my main role will be to sustain dialogue between the EU and developing countries to ensure that their concerns are not dismissed and they get the opportunity to make their case... yet again.
It won't be easy to get the better access to prosperous markets that is essential to increasing states' ability to aid themselves and combat poverty, not impeding it. Developing countries need significant reductions in import tariffs, and the phasing out of specific duties, especially on their exports such as cotton. They also need recognition of the reality that, while liberalisation would produce considerable benefits for some commodity exports for some developing countries, in the case of sugar it will also lead to very disabling adjustment difficulties for others. So far, such concerns been ignored. The outlook is bleak.
My only hope is that, here in Hong Kong, a sense of urgency will finally set in and concentrate minds. Trade justice is crucial to any sustained advance from poverty. This week, negotiators need to do at least enough to ensure that there can be some prospect of progress in 2006. If the developed countries show that they understand that the world's trade regime cannot be governed by one-size-fits-all freedom, it is a possibility. I'm not holding my breath.
