ESC: OCTOBER OPINIONS ON TRADE, AGRICULTURE AND TOBACCO.

Meeting in plenary session on October 17, the Committee adopted, by a large number of votes in favour and a single abstention, an own-initiative opinion on the Preparation of the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference in Qatar. The rapporteur was Mr Vever, a French member of the Employers' Group. The co-rapporteur was Mrs Snchez Miguel (Workers, Spain). To avoid a repetition of the Seattle failure, lessons have to be learnt, according to the rapporteurs. The opinion makes a series of recommendations for Doha including better support for developing countries by placing greater emphasis in the negotiations on development, and granting them special and specific treatment wherever possible.The ESC takes the view that it is vital to set a major objective for this WTO round, capable of attracting enough support, gaining the backing of members and a good number of NGOs. The Committee thus suggests gearing the new round to an "objective of global and sustainable development". This would emphasise:- economic development being central to the round, principally in developing countries;- further development in such areas as health, safety, consumer protection, the environment and social issues;- stepping up formal institutional co-operation with other international bodies, e.g. the ILO, the World Bank, the IMF, and- the firm determination of the international community to respond to the post-11 September challenges by stepping up global and sustainable co-operation, focusing extra attention on problems of underdevelopment.Two opinions on tobacco.During the course of the October plenary session, the ESC adopted two separate opinions concerning tobacco. The opinion on the Commission's proposal on the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco (rapporteur: Mr Bento Goncalves, Various Interests, Portugal) was adopted by 87 votes to 30, with 15 abstentions. Introducing the opinion, the rapporteur took the view that "the Commission text is not good enough". The text of the opinion itself makes it clear that neither consumers, producers, the industry (in terms of employment), retailers or the Member States will benefit at all from this proposal. It further notes that the proposal is likely to accentuate rather than reduce the discrepancies between the rates of duty levied in the different Member States - and this runs counter to harmonisation.Furthermore, the ESC feels that it is unreasonable to think that harmonising excise duty upwards will...