ULUSLARARASI EKONOMİK SORUNLAR

N. Tolga TUNCER
of three bands meaning a higher level of support will necessitate a greater reduction
while a lower level of support will mean a less ambitious reduction is needed. In
addition, there are some limitations for the blue box 7 and green box 8 support measures
as well as reductions for the de mimimis 9 levels of supports.
As we have discussed, Turkey traditionally tried to protect its agricultural sector by
high tariff protection and domestic support measures have a been a secondary mode of
protecting the agricultural sector. In Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations, Turkey
achieved to convince the members that all its domestic support measures were within
the de minimis level. 10 This means that in Doha Round, Turkey has no base rate AMS
or OTDS to be calculated and is going to be exempted from any domestic support
reduction formula.
This is definitely an advantage for Turkey in the ongoing Agriculture Negotiations
and Turkey is able to play a quite “offensive” role for this pillar. As openly stated by
the Turkish representatives in the negotiations, Turkey aims at ambitious levels of
reduction in the domestic support measures by especially developed members. Turkey
aspires that reductions are sharp and implemented as soon as possible. Turkey also has
a somewhat suspicious outlook towards blue and gren box subsidies and believes that
these should also be properly disciplined.
7 Blue box support measures are basicaly the trade distorting supports with some additional conditions
designed to reduce distortion. More specifically, any support measure that would normally be banned
(amber box supports) is placed in the blue box if also requires the farmers to limit their production as
set out in the paragraph 5 of the Article 6 of The Agriculture Agreement.
8 Green box support measures are defined in Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement. These are the
supports that do not distort trade or at least cause minimum distortion. They tend to be programmes
that are not targeted at a particular product and include direct income supports for farmers that are not
related to (or decoupled from) current production levels or prices
9 De minimis is a Latin expression meaning about minimal things and its original version is sourced from
the expression “law is not interested in trivial matters” in Latin. In our context, de minimis levels of
support are the levels that are so small and that will not be taken into account in AMS calculations or
reduction commitments.
10 Agricultural support in Turkey has mainly been in the form of transfers to producers through support
prices for major crops backed by high tariffs. Although the budget value for the agricultural supports
was around 2 Billion Turkish liras for 2006, the actual support levels have been much higher due
to excessive level of protection of the sector. According to OECD estimates for 2006, the producer
support estimate (PSE) has been around 14,5 Billion TRY (around 12 Billion $) and the total support
estimate has been around 17 Billion TRY (around 14 Billion $) in Turkey. The comparable figures for
the EU 25 are around 110 Billion € for PSE and around 125 Billion € for TSE and for US 30 Billion $
for PSE and around 97 Billion $ for TSE. (Source: OECD, 2007)
Uluslararası Ekonomik Sorunlar 25