Actor in global trade spotlight

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN

Tim Groser really is New Zealand's billion-dollar man.

The former actor turned diplomat - now New Zealand ambassador to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva - is charged with tearing down global trade barriers on behalf of Kiwi farmers, fishers, foresters, professionals and manufacturers.

This is heady stuff.

If New Zealand can repeat its successes from the last lengthy round of world trade negotiations - the Uruguay Round - we stand to gain a further $1 billion each year from exports.

But negotiators in the current Doha Development Agenda Round have not yet made the vital agricultural gains New Zealand wants. A compromise deal has been damned by Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton as "pussy-footing".

Sutton wants the level of ambition lifted.

On Thursday lunchtime, Groser breaks from the exhausting wall-to-wall negotiating schedule in Geneva. "I didn't set my alarm this morning because we had been working until midnight again and I didn't wake up until half past nine this morning, " he explains. But fortified by cups of strong black coffee, his natural ebullience quickly returns.

The world of trade negotiations is a dreadfully arcane business - almost impenetrable to all except the cognoscenti.

"Behind this language we are using lie some very real world issues of great importance to New Zealanders and if we could add another half a per cent to our GDP we might be trending at three and half per cent, instead of three," says Groser. "You compound that over 10 years and you get a big difference in the standard of living of New Zealanders."

Despite the seemingly glacial progress, Groser is heartened.

There has finally been a significant breakthrough. Agreement has been reached with pharmaceutical manufacturers from the United States, Japan and Switzerland on a way forward for vital drugs to combat Aids to be made cheaply available to poor African nations.

"What we decided last night was a brilliant piece of work by the US ambassador here," he enthuses. "This is the first real dividend from the Doha Development Agenda."

Elements of the Doha Declaration might now seem a "political fantasy", admits Groser. Particularly the initial deadlines for making progress on agricultural liberalisation.

"There was no way countries such as Japan, Korea and France could ever have got the democratically elected governments to go along with this being done in one hit.

"So we are developing an agreement bit by bit - or incrementally if you want to be polite.

"It's about putting more flesh on the skeleton."

To Groser it's also about the power balance.

"At the end of the day you've got two big groups here - you've got the guys with the money and the guys with the people.

"The guys with the money are the EU and the US - they are the guys that are stuffing up the world agriculture market with their massive US$300 billion [$524 billion] a year subsidies," he notes. "We can't do a deal that they can't accept.

"The guys with the people - that is this unique developing country coalition that has been forged with China, Brazil, India plus 17 other developing countries ... They've got all the people but they haven't got the money.

"We may be a developed country in name and per capita income terms, but in terms of our objective interests they really lie with the developing countries ... because they are the guys who want fundamental liberalisation - reduction of internal trade-distorting subsidies and elimination of export subsidies."

These are challenging times for Geneva's close-knit international community.

On Thursday, many WTO diplomats broke away to attend the funeral of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the slain head of the United Nations' mission in Iraq. The Brazilian envoy had taken leave from his Geneva-based role as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to serve in Iraq.

In 10 days the town will empty again as diplomats swarm to the Mexican holiday resort of Cancun, where they will try to escalate progress on the thorny problems - particularly agriculture.

They will be joined by a huge number of politicians, who will front the discussions. Then there will be government officials, trade lawyers and journalists, as well as protesters from a raft of anti-globalists who want to tame the "WTO monster" they believe squashes lives in developing countries.

Some don't care if the talks collapse.

Sutton and Groser - who will head New Zealand's large official negotiating team - do. They will be joined by Alastair McFarlane (SeaFiC); Meat NZ's Ann Berryman; businessman Craig Ellison, who straddles Maori investment interests; environment representative Gerry McSweeney; CTU economist Peter Conway; Fonterra's Ken Geard; and Stephen Jacobi, from the Forest Industry Council.

One of the world's most accomplished trade negotiators, Groser was singled out by visiting US Under-Secretary of Commerce (International Trade) Grant Aldonas as having done "a phenomenal job"advocating for New Zealand's interests.

"New Zealand has a tremendous corps of professionals who are so well trained and schooled in the arts of Geneva politics," said Aldonas.

Groser, who heads the WTO's negotiating group on rules, cut his teeth in the heady but lengthy Uruguay Round of negotiations, where he started as New Zealand's agriculture expert before graduating as chief negotiator.

Says Groser: "It's about intimidation - manipulation towards good ends of course - and building consensus and getting people to see the wood for the trees.

"This is the biggest problem of all in international negotiations."

Groser is a favourite with the tight cabal of Kiwi ex-pats based in Geneva.

The ambassador's residence on the shores of Lake Geneva has a view to die for New Zealand actor in global trade spotlight

where Groser - who cooks a mean barbecue - will bring out his guitar for singalongs with visiting Kiwis.

Another focal point is Mike Moore and his wife, Yvonne, who renewed the lease on their Geneva home after Moore stood down last year as WTO Director-General.

Then there are the "tax exiles" - New Zealanders such as Fay Richwhite principals Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite and the Vela brothers, Peter and Philip, who all combine at Moore's house to "watch the footie" when the All Blacks play.

But this is mere relief to the serious business in town.

Let's reverse back to mid-May.

On a cold late-spring Geneva morning, I join other observers in the back row of a WTO Council room to hear Supachai Panitchpakdi - WTO Secretary-General - put the question on whether the EU's wish to discuss geographic indicators (the idea that Parma ham should come only from Parma) should be allowed. Groser seconds the motion - subject to the proviso that his is not a negotiating agreement - and starts to open up.

Suddenly the room goes silent.

An African observer sitting next to me says, "the Arabs are coming".

Several hundred people parade single-file in through one door, right up to the top table where they walk behind Supachai and his senior officials and then file out an opposing door.

No one speaks during this silent protest by WTO staff who want pay parity with their peers at the UN and European Commission.

By the time "microphones are on" again, there is no time for Groser to continue his geographical indicators spiel - he must race down the corridor to front New Zealand's official trade policy review, which takes place every three to four years.

It is here that Groser's acting skills come into play.

Using dramatic flourishes beyond the ability of many politicians, Groser demonstrates why he is a force in the trade world.

He talks up New Zealand's reform agenda making much of the economic dividends that trade liberalisation has brought the country.

"What I was trying to do is trying to influence the mood - the psychology of much bigger issues than New Zealand's trade policy," he explains later.

What Groser has been trying to do is encourage other countries to reform their trade policies to give New Zealand's farmers, fishers and manufacturers better access and create more employment at home.

"If you try to bluff and say there were no problems it does not work. But we have got to persuade them they are not going down the toilet if they follow suit."

Another point - which does provoke questions - is the Government's stance that further liberalisation of the New Zealand economy will be done only by reciprocation.

The second major message was directed towards the European Union's agriculture stance. "Someone from Europe said they detected a much better relationship between New Zealanders and Europeans in recent years because the Uruguay Round had put the two big areas of butter and sheepmeat access behind them," Groser says.

"I said to the Europeans, 'you are absolutely right the relationship between New Zealand and Europe has improved in the broader sense, but you should not forget the bitterness that was felt by New Zealanders over what happened from 1973 to the end of the Uruguay Round when we were hurt more than any other country in the world by the European Community's former unrestrained protectionism'.

"I said, 'look across at the Cairns Group - the Australians, the Brazilians and the Argentinians' and said, 'you will make your decision on agriculture on the basis of a cold, hard, realpolitik political decision but you should be aware there is a broader dividend from Europe for doing the right thing'."

Challenged to make a prediction on the likelihood of a Cancun break-through, he says any further step forward on agriculture will have to be "fought for very hard" by officials and ministers. What had come unstuck was not the Doha plan but the Doha timelines - the commitment is still there.

"You've either got to be very inexperienced or a professional cynic to reach a different conclusion."

The important aspect is that real engagement is starting to take place among the two largest players - Europe and the US, he says.

"Now people get nervous when they talk - but actually the record is clear. If they are not talking the system goes nowhere.

"They know that with countries as huge as China and India, they can't sit down here and impose some pretty little deal that might meet their political and commercial interests and expect this to go through. They're not that amateurish."

Three months on, the EU and US have issued their draft bilateral agreement on agriculture - and it is not up to the standard New Zealand expects.

But says Groser, diplomacy is complicated. You don't get everything you want. "This dividend we got from the Uruguay Round we would never have got without this negotiating give and take.

What's important is that the destination is still agreed. "But the road map has to be adjusted to get us there - there are some potholes in the road."

* Fran O'Sullivan visited Geneva on an EU Journalists' Study Award.