United Nations Environment Programme
Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics
Economics and Trade Branch

Working Group Meeting on Trade and Environment

21 October 1999, Geneva, Switzerland

ETU organized an informal brainstorming meeting on the issue of ‘perverse subsidies’, especially relating to fisheries and agriculture on the 21. October 1999. Participants included representatives from WTO, OECD, UNCTAD, research institutions and universities and NGOs. The discussion focused on the identification of main obstacles in the removal of perverse subsidies and ways to overcome them. The main issues identified included vested interests of certain regions/countries/interest groups, inbalanced bargaining power, food security and cash flow impacts of importing countries, the lack of definiton of perverse subsidies and methodologies for assessing their impacts as well as the impact of their removals.

The group carried the common view that UNEP should play a role in the area of environmentally perverse subsidies. As a follow-up to the workshop, ETU will revise the background discussion paper on subsidies in the light of the discussions held (for informal distribution at Seattle) and think about organizing a more formal workshop on the issue in April or May next year.

 

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