Can’t solve woes with more of the same policies’

Jason Brown

New Zealand, Australia and the European Union continue to push existing trade talks despite calls from the OECD to find fresh ways to respond to the global economic crisis.
“We cannot solve the crisis with ‘more of the same’ policies,” says Angel Gurria, Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
“It is crucial that in the middle of the storm we don’t lose our sense of direction; that we do not weaken our efforts to address the perils of poverty, inequality and climate change; that we keep our commitments to scale up development aid; to keep global trade and investments open, to develop cleaner energy to protect our environment,” said Guirra, introducing the 2009 Development Cooperation Report.
OECD is made up of 30 member countries from the world’s leading economies.
Comments from Guirra contrast with a refusal by Australia to fund an office for a Chief Trade Adviser or CTA in a separate office from the Suva-based Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.
Trade activist Maureen Penjueli from PANG, (Pacific Network on Globalisation) quotes Australia as saying, “it did not regard the outcome of the July 2008 Forum Trade Ministers’ meeting as constituting an adequate commitment to negotiations that will lead them to fund the CTA”.
This follows an earlier refusal by islands states to “fast-track” negotiations at a time when global trade talks like the Doha Development Rounds have collapsed.
“Pressure to liberalise according to timeframes and frameworks promoted by Australia and New Zealand makes a complete mockery of the calls for good governance in the Pacific,” she said.
Tensions over trade, long simmering, erupted last month when funding ran out for a Pacific Islands Forum trade adviser.
Rather than go quietly, Roman Grynberg stunned the region by confirming criticisms of New Zealand, Australia and the European Union.
“They really need to step back and rethink their policies and take some of the Rottweilers who are running trade negotiations out of there,” said Grynberg, in the first of a four-part series for Samoa Observer.
One journalist privately questioned whether Dr Grynberg was being “self-serving”—an unlikely outcome considering most officials avoid public comment, lest controversy affect future job chances.
Others more accurately questioned timing of a threat from New Zealand to close down NZAID and return functions and funding to the foreign affairs ministry.
Coincidental or not, the Australian refusal and the New Zealand aid threat seem to be at odds with an emerging new approach to global trade following the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States.
“Free and fairer” is the new mantra coming out of Washington, with New Zealand Herald noting that any hopes for a Free Trade Agreement partnering the US will have to include “social and environmental priorities with the economic imperatives” if the talks are to proceed “quickly”.
Pretty much what Pacific Islanders are asking for, but apparently their priorities do not count as much in Canberra, Wellington or Brussels.
Canberra followed up its refusal to fund a Chief Trade Adviser for the Forum by offering to train officials from the islands in Australia.
A conflict-of-interest?
PANG described the “trade fellowship programme” as “very concerning.”
As the meltdown continues to degenerate into open policy warfare among jet-setting officials, it looks increasingly like progress on trade is reduced to a wing and a prayer.
Or maybe just a wing.
Prayer “only seems the rational thing to do when you are negotiating against behemoths like the EU and Australia,” said Grynberg.
Grynberg was commenting after an EU official objected to staff prayers at the Forum Secretariat office in Fiji.
“They have no monopoly on how free nations, people and organisations should conduct their affairs,” said Grynberg.
“It is only because we are small nations and poor nations, that the EU believes it can behave like this. Would an EU official dare try and ban prayer in a rich Muslim country like Saudi Arabia?”
Immediate support for Grynberg, who has headed to Botswana for another lucrative job, came from Samoa in the form of Associate Minister for Commerce and Industry Jo Keil, the Pacific’s lead trade negotiator with the European Union.
“I heard his contract hadn’t been renewed and I’m saddened by that,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“You know, I was hoping he’d remain on because he is a good person to work with for the Pacific Islands.”
Grynberg had critical words for Forum leaders as well, saying an even “dirtier” secret than behind the scenes bullying was the silence at meetings from politicians who did not want to risk lucrative aid contracts by speaking out.