Serbia unable to close Chapter 30 without WTO

Serbia will not be able to close Chapter 30 (External Relations) in the process of accession to the EU before it becomes a member of the WTO, stated Bojana Todorovic, former resident representative of Serbia at the trade organization.

She said at the panel discussion about Serbia’s joining the WTO in the times of “populist challenges to international trade” that populists wanted to diminish the importance of the trade organization.

– The WTO membership provides small countries with an opportunity to both protect their rights and export their merchandize to other markets under equal conditions by adhering to general trade rules – Todorovic said.

She added that, of 194 UN members, only 21 were not members of the WTO.

– To enter the WTO, Serbia should accept the general rule of the organization regarding the limitless traffic of all goods. This entails the traffic of genetically modified organisms (GMO). Later on, special terms of exporting, importing and cultivating such plants can be adopted, as other countries have done – Todorovic explained.

Numerous countries have, according to her, increased their exports multiple times since joining the WTO. Macedonia, for example, increased its exports from EUR 1.9 billion to EUR 3.1 billion in the 2009-2014 period.

She added that Serbia opened the procedure of negotiations about joining the WTO in 2005 and that it has completed negotiations with the majority of members since them, aside from a few countries, among which are the USA, Ukraine and Russia.

Professor Predrag Bjelic of the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade pointed out that states had understood as far back as the 15th century that they couldn’t develop without open economies.

– In 1966, Serbia joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a predecessor to the WTO, as it understood the advantages of membership in those global organizations, and introduced market economy. This is an important lesson from the past – Bjelic said.

Today, as he said, it’s hard to prove a local origin of the merchandise, as it is most often produced in global chains of companies and economies can’t develop by implementing protectionism and closing their own markets.

Carlos Gimeno Verdejo, representative of the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission, pointed out that Serbia needed to consent to the regulation regarding GMO.

– A full ban on traffic and cultivation of GMO is not in line with the WTO rules. We can agree that a country can have a certain period of transition – Verdejo said.

World Trade Organization Geneva

EUROPEAN COMMISSION Bruxelles

World Trade Organization

WTO

pre accession negotiations of Serbia with the EU

Chapter 30

Bojana Todorovic

joining of Serbia to WTO

limitless traffic of goods

GMO

traffic of GMO

Predrag Bjelic

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

GATT

market economy

Carlos Gimeno Verdejo