(Geneva) The World Trade Organization has postponed its first ministerial conference in four years to the last minute in the face of the appearance of the worrying variant Omicron, dampening hopes of reviving the very weakened organization.
After an emergency meeting, the 164 members of the WTO agreed on Friday to postpone the 12e ministerial conference following the spread of Omicron “which led many governments to impose significant travel restrictions, which would have prevented many ministers from going to Geneva,” the organization said.
“This does not mean that the negotiations have to stop. On the contrary, delegations in Geneva should be fully empowered to bring their positions as close as possible, ”said WTO Director General of Nigeria Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The WTO is the first international organization in Geneva to bear the brunt of the new variant of COVID-19 originally detected in southern Africa. It was classified “worrying” by the WHO a few hours before the postponement of the ministerial. It represents a “high to very high” risk for Europe, according to the EU health agency.
All eyes are now on the World Health Organization (WHO), whose 194 members are due to debate a possible pandemic treaty next week. The holding of two other major meetings – one on sustainable finance, the other on lethal autonomous weapons systems – could also be in jeopardy.
The WTO ministerial, which was to bring together around 4,000 participants, including heads of state and more than a hundred ministers, from November 30 to December 3 at the organization’s headquarters, should have been held in Kazakhstan in June 2020 , but had already been postponed following the appearance of the first cases of COVID-19 at the end of 2019.
All members supported the new postponement. According to the WTO, Mme Okonjo-Iweala told diplomats that an online meeting would not have allowed for “complex negotiations on politically sensitive issues.”
The European Ambassador to the WTO, João Aguiar Machado, admitted that “it was not an easy choice, but the right decision”.
“Bad outlet”
This was the ministerial premiere of Mme Okonjo-Iweala, arrived in March, whose relentless desire has since been greeted by everyone to restore visibility to the WTO, in a context of crisis and growing rivalries between the two leading world economic powers: China and the United States. United.
This first test of the reality of his influence was all the more important since the previous ministerial in Buenos Aires had ended at the end of 2017 without a significant agreement. Since then, the files have piled up.
Many observers found it difficult for the 164 members of the WTO to be able to conclude large-scale agreements during this 12e Ministerial, particularly on fisheries and the issue of intellectual property rights during the pandemic. But many remained hopeful that the meeting would at least break the deadlock on the discussions.
“A ministerial conference offers the possibility of finding political solutions to questions for which technical solutions are not sufficient on their own”, reacted to AFP Dmitry Grozoubinski, director of the Geneva Trade Platform organization.
This conference was also due to take place at a time when the WTO – where decisions are taken by consensus – has lost its relevance because it is unable to conclude major agreements and settle disagreements between certain members and China.
In addition, the main instrument for settling disputes between its members – the appeals body – is paralyzed for lack of judges. The administration of US President Joe Biden has said it is ready to relaunch it after the blockage of the Trump years, but without a concrete proposal.
“There was little optimism about the outcome of the negotiations over the next few days, but this suspension is a bad outlet and prevents us from stressing that the non-engagement of the United States encourages the inertia of a difficult reform of the United States. ‘WTO,’ said Elvire Fabry, researcher responsible for trade policy at the Jacques Delors European Institute.