TN/AG/32  
 
8 December 2015  
(15-6488)  Page: 1/4  
Committee on Agriculture 
Special Session    
 
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE IN SPECIAL SESSION 
REPORT BY THE CHAIRMAN, H.E. MR. VANGELIS VITALIS, 
TO THE TRADE NEGOTIATIONS COMMITTEE 
7 December 2015 
1.  Since the last CoA SS on 18 November, I further intensified my process and held many bilateral 
consultations as well as consultations in variable geometry on a range of issues. I conducted 15 Room E –type meetings, as follows: 
 on 19 and 27 November, and 2, 4 and 5 December on Export Competition;  
 on 24 November, and 1 and 5 December on the Special Safeguard Mechanism; 
 on 23 and 26 November, and 1, 3, 4 and 7 December on Cotton; and 
 on 25 and 30 November, and 5 December on Public Stockholding, which is on a separate 
track from the wider negotiation. 
 2.  In addition, the 4
th Dedicated Discussion on cotton took place on 26 November. I also held 
meetings with the Group Coordinators to discuss al l the issues on the table on 3 and 8 December. 
1  CONTEXT 3.  Despite the intensive consultations and progress made, there is still no appreciable 
convergence on any of the issues Members are working on, with a limited exception in the case of 
cotton. Members have also been working intensively on the content of a Ministerial Declaration at 
Nairobi – across Parts 1, 2 and 3 of that instrument, with Part 2 widely recognized as the place to slot any substantive outcome, including for agriculture. Given the very limited time left before 
Nairobi, the prospects for being able to place so mething meaningful on agriculture in Part 2 are 
not encouraging. 
4.  All my consultations have been guided by a four-core principle I enunciated some time ago. 
These are: that Members' engagement on all of th e issues is entirely without prejudice to their 
position on the overall Nairobi package or to what the post-Nairobi agenda might look like; that we 
work on all areas in parallel; that there is no presumption of convergence, and that we respect 
transparency. 
2  SUBSTANCE 
5.  Regarding Domestic Support  and Market Access, there has been regretfully no evolution in 
the substantive positions of Members. Despite my  requests, no new ideas, suggestions or other 
thoughts on these two pillars have been put forward. Therefore, my conclusion is that there 
continues to be no convergence on domestic support or market access.  
6.  Export Competition  has been identified – without prejudice to positions Members may take 
on other issues and indeed on the post-Nairobi context – as a possible deliverable on agriculture 
for Nairobi. TN/AG/32 
 
- 2 - 
 
  7.  Based on the comments received from Members during my consultations, my objective has 
been to initiate a text-based negotiation process, using the Rev.4 text as a basis and taking into account the various written contributions received from Members. 
8.  I therefore pursued an intensive consultation pr ocess, looking to build out concentric circles of 
engagement, with a view to better identify possible zones of convergence that could then be 
shared in a gradual process with all the Members. 
9.  I also encouraged all Members to seek to stay as close as possible to the existing Rev.4 text on 
Export Competition and that any amendments to th at text ought to be as limited as possible and 
only to the extent necessary. 
10.  I invited Members to reply to the three following questions: (i) Where  in Rev.4 do you have a 
concern?; (ii) What precisely is the nature of your concern?, and (iii) How do you propose to 
address your concern? I also added that I would be expecting written amendments to be proposed 
for the text to reply to this "How?" question. 
11.  As noted above in my report, several written contributions were circulated in the last three 
weeks, in addition to numerous comments an d positions expressed during my various 
consultations. I welcomed this development, but I urged Members to engage in the negotiations 
with a view to narrow the gaps between their various positions, with a view to identifying what is 
realistically achievable in the short term  left before the Ministerial Conference. 
12.  This has unfortunately not been the case so far. Among other issues, specific substantive 
concerns continue to be expressed about the timeframes and conditions envisaged for the elimination of export subsidies, repayment terms in the area of export finance, coverage of self-
financing provisions, special and differential treatment, transparency provisions or monetization in 
food aid. In addition, some new concer ns have appeared in the last days. 
13.  In order to help structuring this debate, I he ld on Saturday 5 December a consultation on the 
SSM, Public Stockholding and Export Competition with a large group of Members based upon a 
compilation of the drafting proposals received fr om Members. An updated compilation on all three 
pillars based on the proposals received during that consultation has been circulated to Members in 
documents JOB/AG/61, JOB/AG/62, JOB/AG/63, respectively. They should be considered as being 
as a whole in square brackets and, of course, wi thout prejudice to the position of any Member or 
to the content/nature/format of any final outcome at the Ministerial Conference. 
3  SPECIAL SAFEGUARD MECHANISM 
14.  The G33 has submitted two papers on the SSM in the context of MC10. These are contained in 
documents JOB/AG/44 and JOB/AG/49 dated 19 October and 18 November 2015, respectively. These proposals seeking a ministerial outcome on the SSM specifically touched the following four 
areas: (i) special dispensation for LDCs and SVEs; (ii) product coverage; (iii) remedies breaching 
pre-Doha bindings, and (iv) application and durati on of volume SSM. Since the circulation of these 
two papers by the G33, a total of five consultations dedicated to this theme were organized 
respectively on 6, 13 and 24 November, and 1 and 5 December to discuss these specific proposals.  
15.  In these consultations, the proponents of the SSM have stressed that they consider the SSM 
to be a balancing element in relation to other potential outcomes for Nairobi. Other Members, though generally welcoming the preparedness of th e G33 to consider their oft-repeated concerns 
as well as some specific elements alluded to in the recent submissions, expressed strong 
opposition to the idea of an outcome on SSM at MC10 in the absence of a broader outcome on 
agriculture market access. In addition to the fu ndamental political issue of the timing of an 
outcome on SSM in isolation from the market access negotiations, some very specific concerns 
were also raised including, inter alia , on product eligibility and the potential applicability of the 
SSM on preferential trade. These Members recorded  some of these concerns in the form of text-
based suggestions during the consultations on  5 December. Given these sustained divergent 
views, the negotiations on this issue have reached an impasse. TN/AG/32 
 
- 3 - 
 
  4  COTTON 
16.  On Cotton, I held intensive consultations both in the classical cotton quadrilateral ("quad")1 
and quadrilateral plus ("quad plus")2 formats, as well in a "quad extended" format with close to 40 
participating Members. 
17.  Based on the C4 proposal for a Ministerial Decision on cotton3 tabled on 12 October 2015, as 
well as various written textual proposals received from Members, I have developed incrementally during these consultations a draft text for a possible Ministerial Decision on cotton at the Nairobi 
Ministerial Conference. 
18.  I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Deputy-Director General David Shark who accepted to 
facilitate the negotiation on the development-related aspects of this text, while I was focusing on the trade-related aspects. 
19.  This draft text (document JOB/AG/64) has been circulated to you on 8 December 2015. It 
includes, in addition to a preamble, three elemen ts – market access, domestic support, and export 
competition, as well as a section on development components and provisions on monitoring and 
follow-up. 
20.  It is fair to say that this text represents the maximum level of convergence that could be 
reached in Geneva on this issue, and that good progress has been made during this consultation, 
on two pillars out of three. 
21.  But the fact is that, despite strenuous efforts, this text leaves the options open on the most 
controversial issues in relation to Domestic Support . 
22.  On Market Access , good progress has been made during our discussion and the text is now 
[almost] stabilized and includes differentiated engagements by Members to grant duty-free and 
quota-free market access for cotton and cotton-related products originating from LDCs, based on a list attached to the draft text. 
23.  On Export Competition for cotton ,  t h e  c h o i c e  t o  b e  m a d e  i s  v e r y  s i m p l e ,  a n d  a l l  t h e  
Members agree on what should be the solution in the context of a wider outcome on Export 
Competition in Nairobi, which remains my working hypothesis. 
24.  The sections on Development  and Implementation and follow-up  can also be considered 
as stabilized. 
25.  On Domestic Support , unfortunately I cannot report similar progress. The positions 
remained divergent. The C4 maintained its prop osal whereas some other Members considered it 
was not doable. Several alternatives were envisaged including Standstill, Due restraint or Best 
endeavours-type approaches but convergence amongs t the participants could not be built around 
any of these options during my consultations. A couple of Members even suggested that this 
section of the text should be limited to  purely descriptive factual paragraphs. 
26.  Finally, there is also a set of remaining issues across the text depending on most fundamental 
choices to be made by Members as regards the post Nairobi work, and had therefore to be left 
open in the text. 
27.  My conclusion is somewhat obvious, and well-known: cotton must be part of any outcome 
from the 10
th Ministerial Conference – not least because of the expected benefits for LDC 
Members. 
28.  There has been good progress and I believe the draft text will constitute a good basis for an 
outcome on cotton at Nairobi. 
                                               
1 C4 (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali), Brazi l, the European Union and the United States. 
2 Quad participants plus Ar gentina, Australia, China, Colombia, India and Pakistan. 
3 TN/AG/GEN/38 - TN/AG/SCC/GEN/14. TN/AG/32 
 
- 4 - 
 
  29.  But leaving very important issues unsolved at the end of the Geneva process will not make 
the task of the Ministers easier in Nairobi. I ther efore urge all the main players at stake in this 
negotiation to carefully reflect during the coming days on how they could contribute to a meaningful outcome on cotton in Nairobi next week. 
5  PUBLIC STOCKHOLDING FOR FOOD SECURITY PURPOSES 
30.  On 25 and 30 November, and 5 December, I held three Room E-type meetings on this 
subject. These meetings involved close to 40 Me mbers, including group coordinators and were 
based on the two new proposals submitted on the issue since the last CoA SS. The first one was 
submitted by the G33 on 24 November (JOB/AG/54) and suggested to exempt programmes for public stockholding for food security purposes from the AMS calculation though a new Annex to the existing Agreement on Agriculture; and the se cond was submitted by Australia, Canada, and 
Paraguay on 4 December (JOB/AG/60) and suggested to use the Bali Ministerial Decision on Public 
Stockholding for Food Security Purposes (WT/MIN(13)/38; WT/L/913) as a text for the purposes of text-based negotiations. The latest Room E discussions on 5 December were based on the two 
proposals and had for the objective to identify areas of common ground on the possible elements 
for a permanent solution. However, despite a willingness to address some of the concerns raised, there is still no convergence on this issue. 
31.  In the meantime, it should be recalled that Members have a mandate both from the 
Bali Ministerial in 2013 and from the General Council in 2014. The former set a deadline for MC11 for resolution of this matter, while the latter instructed Members to make all concerted efforts to resolve this matter by 31 December 2015.   
6  SUBMISSIONS 
32.  There have been ten new submissions that have been presented since the last CoA SS. Out of 
those, eight were submitted on Export Competition (JOB/AG/50, JOB/AG/51, JOB/AG/52, 
JOB/AG/55, JOB/AG/56, JOB/AG/57, JOB/AG/58, and JOB/AG/59) and two on Public Stockholding 
(JOB/AG/54 and JOB/AG/60).  
__________