 |
PrepCom debate on finance | |
| Night session in Geneva |
||
| 22 February 2005. On the fourth day of the PrepCom meeting, the government delegates have come back to detailed discussions on the controversial document section focusing on financial mechanisms. Drafting groups have been created to solve conflicts on specific paragraphs. Negotiations will continue until the late evening. The second reading of the finance section of the draft Tunis document has seen a reverse of the process so far. On Friday, the representatives of many developing countries had severely criticized the draft document for its focus on market mechanisms and its omission of public funding and a development agenda. Consequently the text was changed substantially over the weekend to accomodate the concerns of the South. The new text, however, put many delegations from the Global North in a more defensive position. Delegations from the EU, Canada, and Australia, amongst others, were far more vocal today than they were last week in defending some of the original language of the draft. The declared objective of the chairperson had been to go through the new version of the text very quickly and to only accept fundamental disagreements from national delegations. However, due to the large number of comments by delegations, line-by-line re-drafting has practically resumed. The finance section is far from being finalized. Very early in the week -- with still more than three days to go -- the PrepCom has decided to add evening meeting sessions to the planned schedule, in order to develop solutions for the deep controversies which continue to exist. |
||
return |
||
|
|