[autom.vertaling] De EU stemt in WTO met toetreding van Kambodja en Nepal (en)

Today the WTO Ministerial Conference, meeting in Cancun, approved the accessions of Cambodia and Nepal the first accessions of Least Developed Countries since the creation of the WTO in 1995. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy paid tribute to the two governments for the enormous efforts each had made to meet its accession challenge: "It is apt that the first two LDC accessions since the creation of the WTO should come about at this crucial juncture of a development focussed trade round. The decision on the guidelines adopted last year to facilitate and speed up accession of LDCs is now, quite rightly, bearing its first fruit here in Cancun." Following the Brussels Least Developed Countries' Conference in May 2001, the EU was very much at the origin of specific guidelines for LDCs (to facilitate and accelerate the accession process) when it made concrete proposals in 1999.

The EU has also provided considerable technical assistance to Cambodia and Nepal to make their accessions possible. It will continue to support them in future efforts to build capacity to take full advantage of the benefits of WTO membership.

The two accession countries will be looking to make their economies more competitive, take maximum advantage of the global market place and contribute to more development-friendly trade rules in the future.

Accession of Least Developed Countries to the WTO

The WTO agreed in December 2002 a simplified and accelerated procedure for the accession of Least Developed Countries to the WTO, as part of the work programme adopted at Doha.

The main features of this procedure are:

• WTO Members will refrain from asking acceding LDCs to make excessive concessions or commitments, notably those incompatible with their individual development, financial and trade needs ;

• Granting of transitional periods to enable acceding LDCs to effectively implement commitments and obligations ;

• Good offices of the Director-General available throughout the process to assist LDCs and the chairpersons of the LDCs' Accession working parties;

• WTO Secretariat support in information exchange and accession procedures ;

• Technical assistance provided by Members on a priority basis to cover all stages of the accession process, from the preparation of documentation to the enforcement of WTO rules.

This procedure builds on the initiative launched by the EU in 1999 aimed at facilitating accession of poorest countries to the WTO, taken up in turn by the Third UN Conference on LDCs in Brussels in May 2001.

Over the past five years, the EU has provided a total amount of €640 million of trade-related technical assistance to developing countries. A special priority is given to LDCs, notably through the Integrated Framework (IF) for Least Developed Countries that was established by IMF, World Bank, UNCTAD, UNDP, WTO and ITC (50% of the IF Trust Fund is pledged by the EU).

There are currently 8 LDCs in the process of acceding to the WTO: Buthan; Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Laos, Samoa, Sudan, Vanuatu and Yemen. Thirty LDCs are already members of the WTO.

For more information:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/bilateral/regions/asem/index_en.htm

The guidelines provided a new impetus and a framework for LDC applicants and have clearly given a much-needed boost to the final chapters of Cambodia and Nepal's accession.

Both countries have nevertheless had to take on significant obligations and make important commitments in their accession process including on tariffs, import and export regimes, pricing policies, agricultural policies, sanitary and phytosanitary rules etc. The results of the negotiations are contained in reports of several hundreds of pages adopted by working parties (one for each accession) just a few weeks ago.

Now that the Ministerial conference has approved the package, Cambodia and Nepal will each have to ratify its agreement and inform the WTO accordingly. The accession country then becomes a full member 30 days later.