WTO heavyweights must break logjam in talks
Analysts say
Afp, Geneva
The big hitters of global commerce gathering in London on Monday bear a heavy responsibility -- settle their differences in World Trade Organisation talks or leave the negotiations mired. As Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States joust over the give and take, the EU in particular must avoid a repeat of past mistakes that fuelled the collapse of a WTO summit two years ago, analysts said. US Trade Representative Rob Portman has billed Monday's talks with his EU counterpart Peter Mandelson, Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and Japanese Trade Minister Toshihiro Nikai as a last-ditch effort to salvage the WTO's flagging, four-year old negotiations. WTO chief Pascal Lamy, who is desperately trying to broker a compromise, said the officials "have to make a judgment on the red lines" of their trade partners. "They will have to start discussing trade-offs," he said. According to Sergio Marchi, who previously served as Canada's WTO ambassador and led the global body's ruling General Council, Monday's talks "could play a pivotal role because most of the heavy lifting gets done in the world of informal side meetings." "Then it feeds into the regular, formal process something that has already been cooked and tasted and therefore is probably a lot more palatable to the wider group," Marchi told AFP. Disputes between the heavyweights are endangering a crucial December ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, where all 148 WTO member states aim to craft a treaty tearing down trade barriers. "Is is clear we are running out of time," said Brazilian trade ambassador Clodoaldo Hugueney. "We are in a pretty serious situation." The December 13-18 Hong Kong conference is meant as a final staging post in the Doha Round of trade liberalisation talks, launched in Qatar in 2001. But while an agreement between the trading powers is seen as crucial because they epitomise many of the diverging interests at the WTO, Lamy cautioned that the interests of all members must be taken into account. "The time when only three people would decide is totally obsolete," he said. The WTO works by consensus. Its meetings in Seattle in 1999 and Cancun in 2003 both failed because of persistent discord.
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