The west-east dilemma part 1
Posted on 07. Oct, 2009 by Jonathan Sundqvist in E.U., Sweden
Quite recently there were two interesting pressconferences here in Bangkok. One of them spurred quite the attention and the other one could be said to be the reason for the attention. But first things first, let me explain what was said during the European Union’s press conference and what kind of impact the content there has on the negotiations.
There were three people there, the spain’s lead negotiator, an EU commissioner and last but not the least the swedish lead negotiator Anders Turesson. He brought up some of the issues that EU think are important in these negotiations. Most of the time I think he is overly diplomatic in his tone, on the other hand I guess that has it’s merit sometimes as well.
- Identify common ground - There are only so many areas we can find common ground on and he thinks that we need to worker harder to find these common areas. When doing so it becomes possible to have a substansive discussion in the areas where it’s difficult to agree.
- Mitigation and Finance - Anders mentioned that these issues are indeed very political and sensitive issues. What is currently on the table will most likely continue to be there if this isn’t brought up on the highest political level. Which means you could make a difference by telling your leader to come to Copenhagen. So make your voice heard now!
- Discussion with all parties - The European Union would like to keep all parties in the discussion and take in each perspective. I would say this is very difficult. In either case you would have to lean towards some parties position when taking your stance. If the gap is wide between parties one is going to end up on one side or the other.
- One single legal treaty - This essentially means that what EU would like is replacing the Kyoto protocol with something else, something new. Anders emphasized that they do like the structure of the Kyoto protocol but as they want a discussion with all the parties it would be much easier to have single protocol instead of several simplyfing the discussion and possibly making it easier to achieve more.
What happened next, after this press conference with the European Union was a press conference with G77 and China. A quite exciting one. At the core of that press conference lies the issue of one single treaty. The stated reason for EU wanting one protocol instead of several is that it would bring much more ease into the negotiations if all parties could discuss together and have the same commitments. That way it would international instead of each and everyone trying to do their own race. But now let’s visit the conference with G77 and China.