They heard from Neo Chabane of the South African metal workers, that South Africa should reject “the WTO bullies”. Fisheries expert Marc Allain (see picture), explained why, by pointing out some experiences developing countries have had with liberalizing their trade in fish. In Mauretania, for example, liberalization has unleashed “abusive harvesting” of fish stock and a “sell-off” of its natural resources. If the WTO gets its way and fish trade gets liberalized across the world, that experience will be repeated the world over.

Cornelis Keijzer, a European Union negotiator, outed himself as a “WTO bully” in the discussion. Brave man. Especially as he also, to our astonishment, said that he agreed with Marc’s conclusion on fisheries. Wow. So apparently the EU wants to stop fisheries liberalization and wants to work for a proper management of fisheries globally. Good. Maybe Mr. Keijzer can arrange for someone at the EU headquarters to confirm this to Greenpeace in writing …

In the meantime, we were left feeling happy that so many trade negotiators came to this session. We talked truth to power. And in a few weeks we will publish a report to keep up the pressure. You will read all about it here.