[asia-apec 402] Meeting on the WTO in Spain - Detailed description

[Play Fair Europe!]

Please, find enclosed a detailed description of the meeting on the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) which will take place in Spain from the 4th to the
8th of August. If you are interested in this meeting, please contact us as
soon as possible, since it is already quite late.

Greetings,

Rosa Ruano


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(we apologize for eventual cross-posting)

MEETING ON THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION (WTO) - Spain, 4th to 8th of August 1997

In case you have read the message named "1998 WTO Ministerial Conference in
Geneva", please quit section 1 of this message.

Contents:

1.      Introduction
2.      Objectives of the meeting
3.      Contents of the meeting
        3.1.    Proposals for international action
        3.2.    Coordination of WTO-related activities at international level
        3.3.    Exchange of information
4.      Participation fee
5.      Travel
6.      Practical details
Appendix: Information about the network Play Fair Europe!


1.     INTRODUCTION

The second WTO Ministerial Conference will take place in Geneva in 1998,
according to all rumours in the first half of the year (either in May or in
June). It will be combined with an official commemoration of the 50th
anniversary of the multilateral trading system. Both these events should
"celebrate the past while preparing the way for the future" (WTO FOCUS, no.
16, February 1996).

This is in our opinion a fine opportunity to expose to the public what the
WTO is and which function it has, what interests it defends, the extent of
its power and its social and environmental impact. More important than
this, it is a really strategic moment to express opposition to the
destructive effects that the global market and the WTO have on rural
societies, dignity in labour, the environment, cultural diversity and
self-determination. Finally, it is a great moment for networking among the
growing amount of organisations working on or concerned with the WTO.

This meeting has the aim of advancing in the process of coordination and
collaboration between organisations on the topic of the WTO, and to plan
different international actions aimed to make a good use of the second
Ministerial Conference.

The date and venue of the meeting has been strategically chosen to take
place right after the Second Intercontinental Encuentro (Gathering) for
Humanity and against Neo-liberalism, which takes place this summer in
Spain. The Encuentro, the continuation of the one organised last summer by
the zapatista communities in Chiapas, will bring together up to 4.000
people in a week of discussions, with the aim of creating a worldwide
network for humanity and against neo-liberalism.

There will be a good potential of people interested in taking action on the
WTO in the second Encuentro. However, the Encuentro has been structured
along six rather general and broad topics and will take place in five
different places, which means that it will not really offer a good setting
for a focussed discussion on the WTO. We hence took the initiative to
organise a smaller, more focussed meeting right after the encuentro. This
meeting will take place in El Indiano, a community of the Sindicato de
Obreros del Campo, from the 4th to the 8th of August.

The topics of the meeting will be of two kinds: on the one hand there will
be discussions on concrete action proposals, and on the other more general
discussions on the strategy or strategies (confrontation, lobby, strong
demands, rejection...) to follow towards the WTO within an eventual common
platform for action.


2.      OBJECTIVES OF THE MEETING

1. To plan international activities and publications in relationship with
the Second Ministerial Conference of the WTO in 1998.

2. To discuss the strategy to follow within the Peoples' Summit on Trade,
Money and Finance and, eventually, in a new international platform for
action on the WTO.

3. To promote the incorporation of the WTO on the agenda of organisations
and networks not yet active on the issue.

4. To discuss ways in which organisations active on the WTO in different
regions of the world can support each other.



3.      CONTENTS OF THE MEETING

What we write in this section are only the topics that Play Fair Europe! is
bringing forward for this meeting. However, the first day of the meeting we
will discuss the agenda with the participants, and see whether they also
bring in their own issues and proposals.

The participants will also decide how we should talk about the issues.
There are practical topics (the proposals for international action) on
which it seems better to work in small groups, while some others (the
discussion on the coordination of WTO-related activities) have more of a
fundamental nature and should hence in our opinion be discussed by the
whole group.



        3.1.    Proposals for international action

 We hope that many of the participants of the meeting will bring their own
proposals for actions on the WTO that they would like to realise at
international level, in cooperation with other organisations. We in Play
Fair Europe! have some concrete proposals that we have been spreading
around in the last weeks. These are:

1. Leaflet(s) on the WTO
2. Book on trade liberalisation and the WTO
3. Roundtables & publications on globalisation
4. Peoples' Conference on Alternatives to the WTO
5. Actions during the Ministerial Conference

 In case you have not received the message with the description of all
these actions, please get in touch with us in
<playfair at asta.rwth-aachen.de>
They are only examples, and there will be more proposals on the table in
the meeting (for example, a proposal for an international day of action on
the World Food Day, put forward by the Norwegian GATT/WTO campaign).



        3.2.    Coordination of WTO-related activities at international level

 Right now there are (as far as we in Play Fair Europe! know) two
international platforms of civil society specifically created to work on
the WTO: the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
(ICTSD) and the Peoples' Summit on Trade, Money and Finance. Besides that
there is a number of international networks working on the WTO as part of
their activities (like the ICFTU, the Alliance for a Responsible and United
World, the Third World Network, etc.), and other networks on which the WTO
is one of the main issues (like La Vía Campesina, IFOAM, GRAIN, etc).

 The ICTSD works only as a link between a group of NGOs and (mainly) the
WTO, but its mandate does not consist of taking any position, let alone
campaigning. The Peoples' Summit is still rather undefined in its programme
of work, and until now it is restricted to the areas of food, agriculture
and biological diversity. It is basically an idea that has been supported
by several individuals and organisations.

 Hence, in our opinion there is still not a real tool for the facilitation
of a continued collaboration on the WTO that we could use after the
meeting. The Peoples' Summit might be one, but then it should be defined in
this way. Anyhow, before doing so, we think that we need some more
discussion on whether we need a tool for international collaboration -
maybe the collaboration can work on an informal basis. And even before
talking about this, we should define which kind of collaboration do we want
to have:

 - in terms of its scope (restricted to only certain topics, like the
Peoples' Summit is right now, or encompassing all WTO-related issues?)

 - in terms of its nature (only information sharing, or common
confrontative actions, or a platform of demands? Or a combination of
these?)

 We hence want to talk about these issues during the meeting, to see
whether there is common ground (at least among some of the participants) to
build a tool for working together on the WTO at international level.

 We expect that many of the initiators of the Peoples' Summit will be
present in the meeting, so that we can discuss its nature and eventually
define it more accurately.



        3.3.    Exchange of information

 An important component of the meeting will be the exchange of information
and the getting-to-know-each-other among the persons and organisations
attending it. We will hence propose to allocate an appropriate amount of
time for it.



4.      PARTICIPATION FEE

 The only costs involved in this meeting are the food costs, which will be
divided among the participants. They will be about 10 US $ per day.



5.      TRAVEL


 We are organizing a bus from Amsterdam to Spain for the Encuentro and the
post-Encuentro meeting on the WTO, but we still do not know the price
neither the itinerary. If you are interested, please contact us and we will
send you this information as soon as possible.


6.     PRACTICAL DETAILS

 If you want to come to the meeting you should arrive to Sevilla if
possible on the 3rd of August. The meeting will take place in a rural
community in Cadiz, called El Indiano, one and a half hours away from
Sevilla. If you cannot get directly to Sevilla, there are trains connecting
Madrid and Sevilla several times a day - we do not have the timetable here,
but any travel agency should have it actually, and if not, send us an email
and we will send it to you. You can get from Sevilla to El Indiano as
follows:

 You should get to the Bus Station in El Prado de San Sebastian (Estacion
de Autobuses del Prado de San Sebastian), and ask for the bus enterprise
called "Casal". They have a regular bus from Sevilla to Puerto Serrano at
following times:

Monday to Saturday: 8:30, 13:30, 19:00
Sunday and other non-working days: 8:00, 17:30

 This bus arrives one and a half hours later to Puerto Serrano. From Puerto
Serrano to El Indiano there is about 1 Km walk (about 15 to 20 minutes),
which will be clearly signalised. The bus costs 660 pesetas, about 5
dollars, and there are no non-working days in Andalucia in the first half
of August.

 The meeting will take place in cosy, but not "luxorious" conditions: we
will stay in a building without beds, which means that everybody should
bring her/his sleeping bag and matress. We will cook ourselves, and have
nice parties around the fire.


       APPENDIX: INFORMATION ABOUT THE NETWORK PLAY FAIR EUROPE!


 The Network Play Fair Europe! was created in October 1995 as the result of
a two-weeks seminar called Autumn University On North-South Issues "Play
Fair Europe!". The 80 participants of this event decided to create a
network in order to coordinate the work of the different individuals who
were present there, and made the choice of not having neither a network
office nor network resources, but a really horizontal collaboration between
individuals and groups from all over Europe. Play Fair Europe! was thus
conceived solely as a tool for collaboration and coordination of the
different organisations involved in the network, in order to boost further
activities at the European level for the sensibilization of youths in the
field of North-South relations and sustainability.

 The groups that form part of the network are of different nature. Some are
called Play Fair Europe! too, like the ones in Amsterdam and Aachen. These
have been formed after the first Autumn University, by people inspired by
this event. Others existed already before the Autumn University and have
come in contact with the network in one of its events, and decided to use
the network too as a tool for collaboration.

 The main international projects of Play Fair Europe! as a network have
been a meeting in Madrid during the EU Summit (December 1995), the seminar
"Brave New World" parallel to the 4th ITCPGR in Leipzig (June 1996) and The
Hunger Gathering, an activists forum of 330 people parallel to the World
Food Summit (organised in collaboration with A SEED).

 For the next year, almost all the energies of PFE! will be concentrated on
the WTO. The main area in which we are going to be active (beyond the
roundtables and the peoples' conference in Geneva) is awareness-raising. We
will start with a second Autumn University designed to prepare a whole
cadre of WTO activists, a basis of multiplicators for the sensibilisation
and awareness-raising work in Europe. This Autumn Univeristy, called
"Surviving in a Globalised World", will take place in Aachen from the 27th
of September to the 11th of October of 1997.

 PFE! Aachen was formed right after the first Autumn University. We have
been doing local conscientization work, and we have also been active in all
the international projects of PFE!. We are a relatively small group of
people, all students (at least in theory), quite dedicated to the idea of
social ecology and very engaged in solidarity work with a strong political
content.


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Play Fair Europe! e.V.          Tel: +49-241-80 37 92
Turmstr. 3                      Fax: +49-241-88 88 394
52072 Aachen, Germany           email: playfair at asta.rwth-aachen.de