Norway and Switzerland must take driver’s seat in WTO talks

The Young Liberals of Norway and the Young Liberals of Switzerland call upon their respective governments to take the driver’s seat in getting WTO-Doha talks back on track. Norway and Switzerland must abandon their current navel-gazing strategy of protecting national special interests, and instead use their combined diplomatic strength to help facilitate a successful conclusion to the Doha Development Round, which would create substantial additional wealth and opportunities around the globe and lift millions of people out of poverty.

The G-10 alliance - including Switzerland and Norway - has become an obstacle to progress because of petty protectionist positions in key areas of WTO talks, most notably agriculture. Rather than fighting against trade liberalisation, Norway and Switzerland - as rich countries
whose prosperity is largely owed to trade with the rest of the world - should be the first to recognise the benefits of free trade and hence should work actively for the continuing removal of existing trade barriers and other trade distortions.

Concretely, Switzerland and Norway should lead by example through the unilateral abolition of all export subsidies, a major reduction in all agricultural subsidies and their decoupling from production. The opposition to a maximum ceiling on tariffs should be abandoned. Norway
and Switzerland must work actively for the adoption within the WTO of the Cassis-de-Dijon principle of mutual recognition to combat effectively non-tariff barriers such as the abuse of technical standards and regulations to protect domestic producers against foreign competition.

The Young Liberals of Norway and the Young Liberals of Switzerland believe that a world without barriers to trade is a world that is more prosperous; that offers a way out of poverty for millions who currently face unfair competition; that offers more opportunities and freedom for everyone; and ultimately, that offers more happiness around the globe.Therefore, we are committed to the removal of all barriers to trade, not just the barriers to Norwegian and Swiss exports. In order to create a truly global market with a level playing field for all, we call for the abolishment of all trade-distorting measures, including tariffs,
technical barriers, export subsidies and production subsidies.

This entry was posted on Jueves, Enero 25th, 2007 at 16:19 and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.