 Global Economy > World Trade and Western Supremecy
Oxfam oxygenates debate
on European export subsidies
By Peter Orne
Reporting Boston, MA
Over the past few decades, governments around the world have learned not to underestimate the influence of nongovernmental organizations on the full range of issues. With more and more success, NGOs are organizing citizens, commanding funding and offering compelling cross-narratives that challenge governments’ authority and credibility. International, citizen-driven pressure groups are carrying more and more clout, and they have worked their way almost seamlessly into negotiations, fitting in as so-called stakeholders and advocates for the poor, presenting alternative visions and corrective remedies often in opposition to deadlocked governments or greedy special interests.
An Oxfam volounteer stands outside Britain's first chain of fair-trade coffee shops, in Covent Garden, in mid-May. The chain was launched by Oxfam and fair-trade coffee roasting company Matthew Algie and hopes to exploit the unprecedented demand for fair-trade products (which guarantee a fair price to producers) to narrow the gap between coffee growers in the developing world and coffee lovers in the West. AP Photo |
Perhaps the most famous nongovernmental actor is George Soros and his Soros foundation which has worked over the past decade to shore up civil-society organizations especially in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Other well-known NGOs include Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders. Coalitions of NGOs have formed in support of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and for the abolition of landmines around the world, as well as to oppose the US-led war in Iraq.
Especially in the realm of agriculture, Oxfam International has gained more and more influence in recent years. In addition to organizing people to cope with poverty and disasters, Oxfam uses its resources and access to decision makers "to change international policies and practices in ways which would ensure that poor people have the rights, opportunities and resources they need to improve and control their lives."
In just the past two years, it has conducted a Make Trade Fair campaign in an effort to end harmful agricultural subsidies that tip the balance of trade greatly in favor of European Union and American farmers. Oxfam’s influence includes policy proposals and special reports, meetings with key leaders, a steady drumbeat of press releases, membership and international communication over the Internet. The following is just a small demonstration of its position in renewing debate over ending EU export subsidies.
In early May, EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy publicly stated that he is prepared to be flexible about all these agricultural export subsidies, which give rich-country exports an unfair advantage on world markets, including those for sugar producers in the EU. Only a couple of weeks before the announcement, an April 20 report from RTÉ News shows the head of the Irish Farmers’ Association meeting with Oxfam on the matter.
• The Irish Farmers’ Association has said that proposals put forward in a recent Oxfam report on the EU sugar regime would drive Irish and European beet growers out of business and damage cane growers in the world’s poorest countries.
• After a meeting with Oxfam today, the Chairman of IFA’s Sugar Beet Section, Jim O’Regan, said sugar beet provides a vitally important income for dedicated Irish growers at a time when farm incomes are already under extreme pressure.
• He added that Irish beet farmers are not the ‘big farmers’ Oxfam describes and would be facing disaster if Oxfam’s proposal to cut the EU sugar quota by 33% was implemented. The IFA Chairman stressed that the current EU sugar regime had built-in benefits for many of the world’s poorest countries.
In response to Commissioners Lamy and Franz Fischler’s announcement, Oxfam issued the following press release on May 10th:
• International aid agency Oxfam today welcomed an offer by the European Union (EU) to eliminate agricultural export subsidies and urged the trade and agricultural commissioners to turn their promises into action.
• The EU’s trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, and agriculture commissioner, Franz Fischler, have sent a letter to members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) promising greater flexibility on trade negotiations and pledging to remove all export subsidies, provided other industrialized countries do the same.
• Phil Bloomer, Head of Oxfam International’s Make Trade Fair campaign said: "A genuine offer to eliminate export subsidies would be cause for great celebration. Lamy and Fischler must make this pledge a reality as soon as possible and encourage the US to follow suit. We want to see a definite date set for the elimination of export subsidies. This could give a real boost to stalled WTO negotiations and be a big step towards making trade work for the poor."...
In stark contrast, the Irish Farm Association released the following comment on its Web site. In it, the IFA president was said to be amazed to read reports that Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Joe Walsh, actually went along with the Fischler strategy.
• IFA President John Dillon today [May 11th] told Commissioner Fischler that his proposal to cut export refunds will damage Ireland most because of the high export dependence of our dairy and beef industries. He said that farmers in most other EU countries have a large domestic food market, whereas most of Ireland’s dairy and beef product must be exported. He said that the EU is 108% self-sufficient in milk production, and the figure would be higher if EU supports for internal consumption are not maintained. Thus Ireland is inevitably dependent on the world market for dairy exports. If refunds are phased-out, Ireland’s exports will have go to EU markets, with a knock-on effect on the milk price across the EU.
• Mr. Dillon said: "Commissioner Fischler has no guarantee that the US and other major exporting countries will also phase-out their export subsidies. Both Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Commissioner Fischler have exceeded the mandate of the Council of Ministers agreed in early 2003.
• "While the EU export refund system is highly transparent, the US uses a range of measures including Government loans, deficiency payments and food aid which have the effect of subsidizing US exports but are less visible than the EU system. Even countries such as Australia which claim to be champions of "free trade" use State export boards to manipulate exports."
Given these strong words from the head of the Irish Farm Association, it does seem unlikely that the EU would simply phase out protective export subsidies merely at the behest of developing-country governments within the WTO. But facilitative Western-based organizations such as Oxfam have been working publicly and behind the scenes to restructure the entire context in which the discussion over rich-country farm subsidies has occurred, gradually raising awareness about developing-country markets and farmers and the plight of the poor who have been unable to access the global economy entirely because of them.
Peter Orne is editor of The WorldPaper.
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