WTO chief demands concessions as deadline looms
WTO chief Pascal Lamy stressed that all major trading powers must cede ground to break an impasse blocking a global trade deal as the clock ticks down to an April deadline.
Speaking in Sao Paulo before joining a two-day meeting here of the US and European Union trade chiefs, hosted by Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, Lamy said the onus lies on both the rich nations and developing countries.
But the EU's under-fire trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, stuck to his guns in insisting that both the United States and developing nations like Brazil must come back with better offers.
"There is no time to lose," Lamy told Sao Paulo business leaders, noting that the World Trade Organisation has only a month before it is meant to forge the outlines of a comprehensive agreement.
"On each of the three issues -- agricultural tariffs, industrial tariffs and domestic agricultural subsidies -- each of the big actors has to move," he said.
Lamy said the EU must lower its agricultural duties, the United States must cut domestic support for farmers and the G20 bloc of developing countries must open their markets to more industrial goods.
Brazil, India and South Africa, all leaders of G20, insist that the EU notably must first slash the generous protectionism afforded to its farmers to unblock the WTO's troubled agenda.
But Mandelson, backed to an extent by US Trade Representative Rob Portman, retorts that developing nations must grant much greater access to industrial imports and service industries.
In an interview with Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico, Mandelson said the EU was committed to the April 30 deadline, "but we cannot take brutal short-cuts on complex questions".
The EU trade supremo said an offer by Brazil to halve its industrial tariffs was unacceptable to both Europe and the United States. Washington also has to improve on its proposals to cut domestic farm support, he said.
Mandelson also said the WTO must not rush matters in a bid to forge an overall agreement by the end of this year, before the US Congress regains the right to unpick any trade agreement negotiated by the administration.
"There's a lot at stake for the world economy, particularly for developing countries," Mandelson said.
"We shouldn't abandon our ambitions just to respect the calendar of one of the negotiating partners."
The major players are not making any grandiose claims for what the meeting starting Friday evening in Rio can achieve, with the EU as reluctant as ever to meet a chorus of demands to relax its farm trade.
But all sides know that something has to give if the WTO is to achieve its goal of establishing the broad outlines of a deal on its "Doha Round" by the target date of April 30.
"My sense is that what they will be trying to do today and tomorrow in Rio is try and identify a sort of landing zone ... that will have to take place to get an agreement," Lamy said.
"What is on the table at the moment is not enough for an agreement to be available. That is precisely the purpose of the meeting which will take place," he said.
For his part, Portman hopes the Rio talks can "move closer to establishing a framework in advance of the upcoming deadline", the US trade chief's spokeswoman Christin Baker told AFP.
"Broadly, he is concerned with the lack of urgency by some as April 30 rapidly approaches," she added.
On the eve of the Rio meeting, Brazil, India and South Africa turned up the heat on Europe by lashing out at new EU rules on chemicals that they complained would be "devastating" for developing nations' exports of raw materials.
AFP
