The 8th FTAA Ministerial Meeting in Miami ended prematurely last Thursday 20 November 2003, a day earlier than planned. Delegates from 34 countries endorsed an agreement on minimum commitments, leaving many pending issues to be dealt with in future negotiations. Outside the Ministerial, a peaceful demonstration against the FTAA was simultaneously taking place, with a strong participation from labor unions; although the local press insisted on focusing on a few isolated incidents.
The declaration adopted by the Ministers entails a major change in FTAA negotiations: the aspiration of a comprehensive hemisphere-wide agreement did not materialize, and the Ministerial even failed to carry out the mandates that marked the last stage of negotiations. Indeed, the agreements reached in 1998 (first at the Costa Rica Ministerial and then at the Santiago Presidential Summit), calling for a single undertaking and for consideration of all issues without limitation, got lost along the way.
The resolutions adopted in Miami make it possible to keep the original FTAA agreement alive. But, while it is still alive, it’s only at a minimum level of consensus, as the objective of comprehensive trade liberalization for all sectors in every country has been dropped. The declaration in this case looks more like the proposal for an “FTAA light” presented by Brazil and Mercosur; although this does not necessarily mean that it goes against Washington’s interests.
Both sides obtained a final declaration, and so they can claim the meeting was not a failure. This attempt to politically save the FTAA Ministerial meeting reflects at the same time the weakness of the proposal within each country; nobody could afford another collapse like Cancun (5th World Trade Organization Ministerial Meeting), since politically governments stood to lose a great deal in the eyes of public opinion.
With respect to the participation of civil society, the declaration mentions an “interest” in creating a civil society consultative committee under the institutional framework of the agreement, but only after the agreement’s entry into force, thus excluding the possibility of expanding participation as from this stage of the process. Therefore, none of the old problems of restricted information and participation in FTAA talks have been solved.
In short, the FTAA has changed its course. Clearly, we can no longer say that the project is comprehensive or ambitious, and the outcome is still to be seen. The results were so modest that Ministers finished work one day early, and almost left Miami through the backdoor, in the midst of mass citizen protests. No progress has been made in substantial aspects, and the parties involved seem to have abandoned the original project. A question mark now hangs over the 2005 deadline set for the treaty’s approval.
Based on an article by Gerardo Evia and Eduardo Gudynas, information analysts at D3E (Development, Economy, Ecology and Equity Latin America).
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