The trade ministers had planned to negotiate several pressing and controversial issues from Tuesday. These include the relaxation of vaccine patents, the elimination of harmful fishing subsidies and reforms in the WTO.
The meeting has now been postponed for the second time due to the pandemic. It should originally have taken place in June 2020. “It is better to be on the safe side,” said WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The Geneva conference was planned as a hybrid event, but many delegates still wanted to negotiate personally in Geneva. They would have been disadvantaged by the new rules, argued Okonjo-Iweala.