By Karen Lang, OWINFS and Graciela Rodriguez, IGTN Global Coordinator

During 2009, the debate and action around the current global crisis - in all its dimensions - economic, financial, environmental, social, food, among others - have been the center of much attention. The global movements worldwide have been emphatic in claiming that this is a structural crisis and that the free trade model that the WTO has been imposing and the bilateral or bi-regional agreements are at the root of this crisis.

This was particularly evident at the outbreak of the financial crisis: years of liberalization and deregulation of the financial sector, imposed mainly by the GATS - General Agreement on Trade in Services in the WTO - let the big banks and insurance companies free from any interference or control of States, free to "self-regulate". The liberalization of investment allowed a massive and irresponsible capital flows with high risk financial products, popping the bubble, causing a major crisis of global economic and financial system, leaving millions of workers unemployed, among other dramatic impacts.

After the "storm" was set, even the G20 sought to recognize in its statements the need for regulations in the financial sector, calling for the creation of new control rules. However, with respect to the G20, the contradiction in their positions is flagrant, because while it is said to be necessary to regulate the sector, they call strongly for a conclusion of the Doha Round at the WTO.

It was in this economic and international political context that the 7th Ministerial of the WTO took place and clearly showed that contradiction. As we know, in the Doha Round, it is sought to deepen the free trade model with more liberalization in all sectors.

In April 2009, the G20 had defended the need to conclude the Doha Round in 2010 and in May, the WTO chief (Lamy) announces the WTO Ministerial Meeting in late November. Thus, it was planned amid huge doubts about the real possibilities of progress, with negotiations stalled for over a year.

Since then, it became clear that the decision to make the Ministerial was motivated not so much to try once again to conclude the Doha Round, but to avoid the obvious loss of relevance of the WTO within the international system. That is, the Ministerial was actually called as a salvage operation of the WTO, seeking to recover some central role for it in the global financial and economic system.

With the global crisis, it was clear that the U.S. and the EU - but also other countries - had no interest in making concessions or open their markets. Moreover, in the case of the U.S., this was being aggravated by the "buy American" policies, by the serious internal problems especially in the U.S. Congress, and the lack of authorization of "fast track" for the Obama to negotiate the agreement. At the same time, the lack of definition of U.S. trade policy and even the lack of appointment of the U.S. negotiator at the WTO were very noticeable before and during the Ministerial, determining in some form that this ministerial meeting was in fact a "housekeeping" event. The Doha Round would not be on the official agenda. It would then treat domestic issues - the functioning of the WTO and a discussion on "WTO's contribution to the crisis." And to avoid further weakening the institution, it was decided that there could be no controversial issues on the agenda.

Still, and even if the Doha Round was not on the official agenda, some countries feared that parallel negotiations were made at the ministerial meeting in Geneva, and that indeed ended up happening.

In preparatory meetings, developing countries had declared that the texts of December 2008 should serve as a basis for negotiations at the WTO, which actually represented a setback, because these texts did not cover various demands of developing countries - for example on safeguard mechanisms in agriculture. However, not even this was good enough for the U.S. that continued to assert that these texts did not interest them, and that their interest was to know exactly what countries were willing to yield, in particular by requiring concessions from Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Argentina.

It is important to mention that political change in India - a country that is now showing greater alliances with the U.S. - will have important consequences in the context of the WTO, since India was instrumental in causing the impasse in negotiations.

At the end of such preparatory meetings, Brazil stated that demands for more concessions from the Developed Countries were unacceptable and that it had little hope in the progress of negotiations.

However, despite contrary voices from different countries, the U.S. continued pushing for bilateral meetings, causing dissatisfaction among the developing countries given the lack of transparency of these meetings.

Finally, despite these bilateral meetings, negotiations in the different areas showed no concrete progress. The deadlock continued between the U.S. demands for greater concessions from the developing countries and those without receiving any attractive offer (although much is said about the possible trade-offs). Several analysts have said that for the U.S. to be able to offer something meaningful, it would have to alter its Farm Bill and now the Obama administration do not have conditions to achieve this.

Another explicit interest at this Ministerial was to advance the negotiations on financial and environmental services, so as to allow both the restructuring of the global financial system as promoted by the G20 and to facilitate the "business" that is becoming the climate through carbon market and clean technologies. However, and apparently, none of these negotiations succeeded, although some begin to speak of an "early harvest" for some subjects on which the working groups continue to negotiate.

Because of the reasons outlined in general terms, the 7th WTO Ministerial in Geneva ended, as expected, without progress. Although it has been reiterated that negotiations should intensify for ending the Doha Round in 2010, the possibilities presented for this to happen are not very clear.

Anyway, it is necessary to keep alert because the negotiating teams continue to work at a good pace and several aspects related to the functioning of the WTO and alterations of its rules are at the table, including discussions on the method of consensus for approval of agreements. Common criticisms of this system that would render the WTO ineffective are growing from rich countries and some emerging (in the case of the document "Strengthening the WTO" submitted by India) threatening to be installed in discussions or even worse, finding informal channels of pressure, turning this space less transparent and democratic.

At the same time, although several less developed countries still prefer a multilateral system, there is little expectation that the WTO negotiations move forward at this time. But no one wants to abandon the WTO directly or openly, because nobody wants to be responsible for the failure of the multilateral system.

In this context, it remains urgent and priority to accompany WTO negotiations. We cannot be satisfied with its weakening, given that it does not mean that the liberalizing corporate agenda is paralyzed. Rather, it is obvious that many governments and TNCs continue to push, even more aggressively now, this agenda by way of bilateral or regional agreements.

For social movements and networks that accompany the processes in negotiation, this means that we must continue to resist the free trade agenda in its broadest expression, and that it is essential to continue to develop our alternatives to influence the debate and governments as a basis for the development of new relations between North and South that overcomes the current international division of labor.