Angela Ellard – Trade β Blog

Fisheries subsidies draft published for WTO Ministerial Conference

But with many issues unresolved, the chair says officials will continue to work on it before and during the Abu Dhabi conference

UPDATE: On April 12, 2024, chair Einar Gunnarsson circulated a copy of an “advance draft” as emailed to ministers in the early hours of March 1, 2024, close to the end of the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference. His accompanying explanation includes a detailed account of what happened at the conference.

Paragraphs 56 to 59 of the chair’s explanation describe further convergence after that draft was circulated, although some issues remained unsettled. It was the further revisions that Fiji and Vanuatu wanted discussed in the final plenary sessions at the conference, sparking a furious outburst of objections from India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal. As Gunnarsson says, work will continue.

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED FEBRUARY 19, 2024 | UPDATED APRIL 13, 2024

The fisheries subsidies draft for the World Trade Organization’s February 26–29, 2024 Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi was published on February 16 along with a detailed explanation by the chair, Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson of Iceland.

“All members are very aware that next week, the eyes of the world will be on us,” Gunnarsson told journalists on February 19. (His full statement is here.)

“I believe that we have every possibility to deliver a meaningful outcome and bring these very long-running fisheries subsidies negotiations to a close at last. I will do everything in my power to help that chance become a reality.”

Achieving that is not guaranteed, and work continues in the final days before the conference to resolve at least some of the remaining differences.

(The draft and the explanation are presented side by side here.)

Chair upbeat about members’ approach to final WTO fish subsidies push

Negotiators’ ‘constructive tone and well-organized and business-like participation in the meeting left me with an increased sense of optimism’, said Einar Gunnarsson

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JANUARY 16, 2024 | UPDATED JANUARY 16, 2024

The start of the final “fish month” before the Word Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi has been promising, Einar Gunnarsson, Iceland’s ambassador who chairs the WTO talks, said today (January 16, 2024).

“Overall, the positive tone and constructive spirit with which members engaged demonstrated their continued commitment to conclude the second wave of negotiations by [the Ministerial Conference],” he said. (His full statement is below, the WTO website news story is here.)

Gunnarsson was speaking to journalists after opening the four weeks of talks the previous day.

The aim is to have a clean, agreed text by February 9. This would be sent, via the February 14 General Council meeting to the February 26–29 Ministerial Conference.

WTO fish talks complete draft read-through with little real negotiation

Countries differ on extra scrutiny for big subsidisers, reopening the 2022 agreement, special treatment for developing countries with exclusions for China and others

See also:
Technical note on subsidies for fisheries,
“Talks face tough week as India seeks to reopen 2022 deal”
“Updates, timeline and links” since Dec 2020,
all articles tagged “fisheries subsidies”

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED OCTOBER 16, 2023 | UPDATED OCTOBER 16, 2023

World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiators completed their read-through of the chair’s draft on subsidies contributing to overfishing and overcapacity in the week ending October 13, 2023, but hard bargaining to resolve some wide differences still lies ahead.

WTO members completed their line-by-line reading of the 5-page, 4-article draft circulated by the talks’ chair, Iceland’s ambassador Einar Gunnarsson in early September.

The many proposals for amending the draft are being compiled into “comprehensive tables of attributed suggestions for all the provisions in that document” so that they can be compared, he told negotiators.

“In short, it is now the right time to enter into full negotiating mode,” Gunnarsson urged them, indicating that proper negotiations have not yet begun.

WTO fish talks face tough week as India seeks to reopen 2022 deal

On the eve of another ‘fish week’, India’s paper shows how wide the gaps are

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED OCTOBER 6, 2023 | UPDATED OCTOBER 16, 2023

World Trade Organization negotiations on fisheries subsidies resume for another week on Monday (October 9, 2023), with delegates starting to negotiate the chair’s draft, line by line, amid signs that the going will be tough.

A paper from India circulated at the start of the previous “fish week” (September 18–22) is said to have caused dismay among some negotiators apparently because it sought to reopen provisions that had already been agreed at the June 2022 WTO Ministerial Conference.

The paper also reiterates India’s position in the main issue that is now being negotiated, and one that has been deadlocked for years — subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity. It differs considerably from the draft that the chair circulated a month ago on this subject, indicating how much work negotiators face.

Chair’s draft accepted, haggling over WTO fisheries subsidies text begins

Can negotiators strike a deal this winter?

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED SEPTEMBER 22, 2023 | UPDATED SEPTEMBER 23, 2023

World Trade Organization (WTO) members have agreed to proceed with the text drafted by the fisheries subsidies talks’ chair as a basis for their negotiations as they strive to reach agreement on it by February 2024.

This final phase of the negotiations aims to break the deadlock that left the 2022 Fisheries Subsidies Agreement incomplete. WTO members still have to agree on provisions to discipline — and in some cases outlaw — subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing.

Their target for reaching agreement is the next (13th) WTO Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi next February.

Whether a breakthrough can be achieved after decades of deadlock remains to be seen. Disciplining subsidies contributing to overcapacity and overfishing is a key part of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, target 6, whose 2020 deadline for the WTO talks is fading into the distant past.

Belief in the multilateral trade system is eroding, and that spells trouble

Don’t be fooled by the smiles. The next WTO Ministerial Conference is only a year away but the atmosphere is worse than before the previous one

By Peter Ungphakorn and Robert Wolfe
POSTED FEBRUARY 26, 2023 | UPDATED FEBRUARY 26, 2023

Time flies. It was only last June that the World Trade Organization (WTO) emerged from a morale-boosting Ministerial Conference, hailed as a success simply because members could at least agree on what to do next, often in the vaguest possible terms, and not on everything.

They did strike a deal on curbing harmful fisheries subsidies but even that was gutted of its most important element: tackling subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, the top priority of UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 Target 6.

The June success is already a distant memory.