Report from 16th June Meeting

Clive George from Manchester University summarized orally the final Global Overview of the Doha Development Agenda report. China is set to gain, but some LDCs will lose. If the benefits from the DDA are people-weighted, then one could say that most people would gain, .i.e. China has enough people.
 
Rupert Schlegelmilch will do a presentation at the CTE in Geneva in July. The Task Force on Aid for Trade will present results toward the end of July.

Clive George said Manchester is taking the World Bank predictions of the gains from trade. Thomas Ruddy asked Schlegelmilch about Lamy's statement that the WTO will publish such predictions itself to increase the credibility of such predictions, and whether they would be broken down by country, as Colin Kirkpatrick had noted that it is hard to generalize about individual country gains in SIAs. Perhaps each country is a special case.

The BBC has published an At-a-Glance Guide on Poor countries and trade. It is a simpler way than Impact Assessment to condense facts, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5108260.stm#

Meeting at Finnish Presidency on 20th June
Several members of the European Trade Network of NGOs visited the Representation of the Finnish Presidency with deputy trade negotiator Anne Vasara. Thomas Ruddy referred to the priority to be placed on impact assessment in the statement on the official Website, http://www.eu2006.fi/the_presidency/en_GB/presidency_agenda/

 "The aim is to use impact-assessment to help determine whether new regulations are needed and for a thorough examination of the necessary measures. Finland will also endeavour to steer simplification proposals through the Council."

Ms Vasara announced two forthcoming Commission Communications on China: one of them in general terms and the other on trade with and investment in China. Task Force on Aid for Trade will present its report toward the end of July.

The NAMA negotiations are about reducing both tariffs using a formula and Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs). Friends of the Earth Europe expressed concern over reduced NTBs in the form of sectorals on forestry and fisheries.

Other NGOs spoke on gender issues and TRIPs


Meeting Concluding the Sustainability A-Test Project on 20th June

The project's new domain name www.sustainabilitya-test.net was opened from the existing identical project Website http://ivm5.ivm.vu.nl/sat/

Andreas Kraemer from Ecologic spoke on the Commission-wide impact assessment procedures. Wouter de Ridder from the project partner Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency MNP gave an introduction to the Website before the official ceremonious opening of it by Pierre Valette (acting Director DG RTD-I).

Craig Robertson from the European Commission's Secretariat-General ("Impact Assessment, Institutional matters and better regulation") expressed his pleasure with the results.

The project results are to be addressed to:
A representative from the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen asked whether member states should not also be addressed in view of their doing impact assessments. Andreas Kraemer was delighted to hear from DG RTD that the results were pleasing and wanted to launch a dissemination strategy.

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