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| Sunday, 11 December 2005 |
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WTO faces tough talking in Hong Kong HONG KONG, Dec 10 (AFP) - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) meets here next week with hopes fading fast of salvaging a deal to liberalise global trade blocked by an EU and US impasse on farm subsidies. Having agreed to disagree in a series of preparatory talks on an overall trade accord ahead of the conference, the tone has become more combative as the meeting draws near and expectations have been progressively downgraded. The aim now is at best to secure some sort of deal to help the less developed countries, with another series of negotiations on the Doha Round pencilled in for next year when they must be concluded without fail. So far, the main protagonists - the European Union, the United States, India, Brazil and Japan - have come up with a series of seemingly reasonable proposals but which usually require their partners to take the plunge first. The result is that there has not been enough progress on an accord whereby the developed world would open up its agriculture markets in return for free access in the developing world for its industrial goods and services. Against that backdrop, it may be time to get your retaliation in first, with the European Union, tagged as the main obstacle to farm trade liberalisation by the United States, mincing no words. "In a multilateral trade round you can't simply negotiate about agriculture," EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said Thursday, warning that developing countries must embrace reform of their industrial goods and services sectors to keep the WTO Doha Round alive. "The problem is the negotiations are not actually happening," Mandelson said, blasting what he described as "tactical brinkmanship" and "crude bargaining" behind the WTO scenes. "If this round fails, our offer (on agriculture) will not come again," he said, adding that unless the Hong Kong meeting keeps the Doha Round on track, the fate of trade reform will lie in the balance. Such tough talking may raise fears of a repeat of the Cancun, Mexico debacle in 2003, when the Doha Round negotiations ran into the sands. |
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