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European trade calls for ''restored balance'' and a halt to ''backtracking'' on agricultural subsidy issues

BRUSSELS – 03/01/08 – Efforts to revive the stalled Doha Round of international trade negotiations are “teetering on the brink” of total collapse, according to European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.

Failure of the fractious trade talks will result in a major blow to the world’s poorer countries, the nations, he said, “that have the most to lose if the concessions already on table, including a paradigm shift in global farm subsidies, are lost.”

Mandelson said he now fears “that Doha is facing a high risk of failure, the first failure ever for a multilateral trade round. That would not be a good signal for the global economy which needs the confidence boost and the insurance against protectionism.”

Agricultural commodity demand, he said, “is high and supply is tighter than ever, which makes the logic of freer farm trade compelling.”

The EU trade head made his remarks in comments yesterday to a conference of trade ministers of a group of  lesser- developed countries in the South African nation of Lesotho.

The talks “are set to fail unless negotiators can restore balance to the different strands of the negotiation and close a deal before November elections in the US bring a change in the White House that makes negotiating a comprehensive trade deal difficult.”

The climate for trade deals, he said, “is not going to improve with a new US president.” There is, Mandleson said, “No external force that can end this negotiation for us. We're like a boat with oars. Unless we row, we go nowhere. Unless we all row together, we go in circles. Unless we row now, the tide will push us past the last remaining harbor.”

A failure of the talks would be “catastrophic” and “would send a signal that the international community is simply not capable of pulling together when it comes to global economic governance.''

He warned against backtracking on past commitments "to real new trade opportunities in both industrial goods and services as well as agriculture."

But, he added that “in the political horse trading to reach a deal there was a risk of introducing too much flexibility that would effectively neuter new market access, whether in developed or emerging economies.”

The Doha Round of trade talks was suspended indefinitely last July with many trade analysts saying that while several previous trade rounds all experienced eleventh-hour breakthrough, entrenched attitudes – particularly toward agricultural policies – make a Doha deal extremely difficult to negotiate.

The World Trade Organization launched this round of negotiations at its November 2001 ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar.

Since the talks were initiated, their aim has been to unlock global trade in areas where many barriers still exist, particularly in sectors such as agriculture, services and manufacturing.

A much-cited study published by the World Bank last year concluded that a successful round of trade talks would increase global trade by nearly $300 billion per year by 2015.

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