Agenda item 4.1. WTO Reform – Report by the Facilitator
The UK supports the work of Ambassador Ølberg; we welcome the report and we support his engagement with the G20 process. We welcome also the focus on MC14 as a reform Ministerial Conference and the UK stands ready to support the process as needed and we will update the membership later on in our information item on the Wilton Park conference last week.
The UK continues to believe like, the majority of Members, that now is very much the time for reform, and the credibility of this organisation rests on it. We all have different priorities but that underlines again the value of the facilitator’s process and the need to engage with it constructively. The UK is keen to move to focussed, detailed discussions on areas identified by the facilitator. The sooner we can get to open, frank, and hopefully constructive discussions, the better. The sooner we can engage with specifics, the more we can minimise the asks of our ministers at MC14, and we recognise the need to be pragmatic in scope to achieve that.
The priorities for the UK remain decision-making, Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT) and market-distorting practises, but we recognise the wider interests of the membership and the need for the facilitator to accommodate those. Thank you.
Item 9
Thank you Chair. We’d like to be brief the UK would like to note that we really welcome this innovation. Simplifying global trade for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) is a really value-added role that the WTO can provide.
The UK Trade Commissioner was able to be present directly. Our focus in our interventions was around SMEs’ access to finance and the green transition. We would also like to know that we support the road map produced and support its implementation. Thank you.
Item 10
Thank you, Chair. The United Kingdom welcomes the initiative and the establishment of the website as a record for members to refer to. We reaffirm that the UK encourages further work on this important topic. The UK stands ready to engage constructively with all Members as these conversations develop. Thank you.
Item 11
Thank you, Chair.
From the 1st to the 3rd of October, the United Kingdom hosted delegates from across the WTO membership at a conference at our Wilton Park venue to discuss the future of the multilateral trading system and WTO reform within this context. Whilst English country houses are both large and charming, sadly they cannot accommodate the whole membership. In the interest of transparency, we wanted to provide this report and are happy to discuss further any detail with any interested members.
We were joined at the conference by the Director-General and the WTO Reform Facilitator, and we invited representatives from the full cross section of the membership or group coordinators and a strong regional mix. We would like to thank all delegates for their attendance and, in particular, for the quality, openness and depth of conversations that we had. There were no clocks. There were no cameras and, after a while, there were no statements either. The conference itself was held under confidentiality terms, but I will try and draw out a few points to report back on general comments and observations.
The first was, unsurprisingly, there was a very wide divergence of views. There was a divergence in the problems that people saw, and there was a divergence in the value people saw in the WTO. However, in response to your question from yesterday and your challenge, DG everyone saw some form of value in the WTO, it just wasn’t necessarily the same thing.
The second is an observation around stability. There was a general agreement that there was value in some stability for businesses to operate and for that we would need some agreed rules, but again, disagreement that the current rules necessarily were the right ones under which to operate.
The third observation being there were the beginnings of proposals and ideas that were raised. There were no particular agreements, that was not the objective of this. But hopefully in the frank and open discussions that Members had, they were able to evolve their thinking so that we could listen to each other and hopefully develop better ideas in that process. I’m sure in the coming weeks and months, those Members will want to bring those ideas to this Chamber.
Chair, I think there is probably a real value add of those discussions and one for us to remember in this Chamber that depth of understanding is a prerequisite for any progress. In Geneva we talk all the time to each other. Sometimes we don’t always listen, but we do talk. One of the advantages at Wilton Park was over that period of time we were forced to listen to one another and whilst we may talk here, colleagues from capitals do not always get the chance, and the invitees from capitals saw value in that. I will pause there and on our report. Thank you, Chair.