NEWS - Pressure Groups Turn up Heat

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Subject: NEWS - Pressure Groups Turn up Heat Over Trade

Pressure Groups Turn up Heat Over Trade

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Friends and foes of free trade are girding for
a mighty clash over a new round of world trade talks that will be a
measure of the growing influence of non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) over economic policy. 

Tens of thousands of activists are expected to descend on Seattle on
November 30, the opening day of a World Trade Organisation (WTO)
ministerial meeting, in a "mobilisation against globalisation" aimed at
derailing the negotiations. 

Scarred by the success NGOs had in scuppering an international
investment pact last year, governments and business leaders openly
acknowledge that widely held fears about the impact of global trade
could undermine the Seattle agenda. 

"We have to engage in this debate, which at the moment is a bit of the
dialogue of the deaf. We have to overcome the doubts, not felt by the
hard commandos of the anti-globalisation movement, but the doubts felt
by pretty reasonable people," said Robert Madelin, a senior European
Commission trade official. 

So belatedly, the free-trade establishment is starting to fight back in
a propaganda war that anti-WTO NGOs, a motley mix of environmentalists,
unions, aid campaigners and consumer groups, have so far been winning
hands down. 

"Those who us believe in liberalisation have got to keep a quiet,
persistent argument going -- that whatever you do about the environment,
wage costs and third world debt, liberalisation is a friend of
everyone's prosperity," Douglas Hurd, a former British foreign secretary
who chairs British Invisibles, a services industry lobby group, told
Reuters. 

Peter Sutherland, who was the WTO's first head and now chairs oil giant
BP Amoco, said business had to tackle head on the suggestion of NGOs
that globalisation is somehow immoral. 

"This is a very dangerous debate that hasn't been taken on properly
either by industrial countries or by multinational companies, who at
times sound almost apologetic about the process," Sutherland said. 

PRESSURE GROUPS HAVE BIT BETWEEN THEIR TEETH 

In contrast to the defensive tones of the globalisation lobby, NGOs are
brimming with confidence. 

"The balance of power has shifted," said Andrea Durbin, director of
international programmes at Friends of the Earth in Washington. "NGOs
are more influential and governments are more responsive to NGOs,
largely because the public recognises the global economic rules are not
benefiting the people," she said. 

NGOs have certainly notched up a string of high-profile successes.
Shell's abandonment of a plan to dispose of the Brent Spar offshore oil
installation at sea, Pepsico's withdrawal from Burma and the backlash
against genetically modified crops in Europe were all triggered by
well-organised campaigns by NGOs. 

But what really gives NGOs hope of hampering the next round of trade
talks is the role they played in blocking a proposed Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI) under the aegis of the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

The MAI was a complex accord fraught with political danger. At the end
of the day, governments got cold feet. 

But William Witherell, director of the OECD division that took the lead
in the talks, has no doubt that NGOs, which seized on the MAI as a
symbol of globalisation harmful to the poor and the weak, were
instrumental in the collapse of the pact. 

"It took a while for our governments to come to grips with the new
phenomenon of NGOs and the role they're playing and the best way of
dealing with them," Witherell said. 

He said international financial institutions (IFIs) had learned from the
MAI fiasco and were listening more closely to pressure groups. But he
said governments were still very nervous. 

"There are forces that are anti-trade liberalisation which have quite a
bit of momentum going. That's going to be very difficult leading up to
the Seattle meeting and beyond," he said. 

INTERNET WARS 

NGOs were particularly adept in using the Internet to mobilise a vast
alliance of groups opposed to the MAI, in effect transferring the
negotiations to a new arena. Significantly, most of the groups have now
redirected their fire to the WTO. 

"This medium turned out to be the worst enemy of the MAI. Let us make
sure that in any future multilateral negotiation on investment, in the
WTO or elsewhere, the Internet is our best friend," said Jan Huner, who
was secretary to the MAI talks. 

IFIs have responded by making more information available on the Internet
and by inviting comments on various proposals. But they still seem to be
on the back foot. 

"The OECD is not lagging in the use of the Internet, but we have not yet
done what NGOs have done," said Jean-Marie Metzger, head of the OECD's
trade directorate. 

Consumers International, a lobby group, recently launched a campaign on
its website against the WTO, Metzger noted. "But there's no campaign for
the WTO. Nobody's launched a campaign FOR the WTO -- not even the WTO
itself!" 

REACHING OUT TO THE NGOs 

To end what Madelin, the Commission trade official, calls a dialogue of
the deaf, IFIs are trying harder to explain themselves by consulting
NGOs more often. 

"I see discussions with NGOs as a very important contribution to the
democratic functioning of IFIs," said Joke Waller-Hunter, head of the
OECD's environment directorate. 

Some multinational corporations have sought to draw the sting of NGOs by
opening channels for dialogue or cooperating with them to tackle social
and environmental problems. 

But John Bray of Control Risks Group, which advises firms on political
and security risks, said the cultural divide, while it was narrowing,
could probably never bridged given the different constituencies and
viewpoints represented. 

"I don't think it's in either side's interest to be seen to be in the
other's pockets," Bray said. He said NGOs especially risk being accused
by their supporters of "collaborating with the enemy" if they respond
too warmly to the overtures of IFIs. 

At any rate, these overtures for now fall far short of NGO demands. 

"They are reaching out more, everybody is reaching out more, but I have
yet to see a difference in the stance of any of these governments
towards commercial interests," said Jayanti Durai of Consumers
International. "I don't think the penny has really dropped that we need
to do things differently." 

With emotions running so high, Douglas Hurd is worried about Seattle.
"The last round was very quiet, perhaps too quiet: there wasn't enough
public interest. But this round runs the risk of being too noisy. The
noise may be a cacophony," he said.