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novembro 23, 2004
EU's new trade chief seeks concessions in global trade talks
Less than 48 hours into his new job, the European Union's trade chief, Peter Mandelson, tried to stimulate global trade liberalisation talks by demanding more concessions from other major trading nations.
In his first trip to the World Trade Organisation, the incoming European Trade Commissioner insisted that more progress was needed on the controversial issue of opening up industrial markets.
"The negotiation has to be a two-way street and, while Europe will continue to play its full part in bringing the round to success, we cannot be its only banker," Mandelson said after meeting the WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi.
"The round has to benefit other participants too," he told journalists, pledging his commitment to the international effort to open up more markets to trade.
Other WTO member states, led by developing countries such as Brazil and India as well as nations which export agricultural produce, have been pressing the EU to dismantle its multi-billion dollar system of agricultural subsidies.
A meeting at WTO headquarters in Geneva in July appeared to revive the ailing three year-old Doha round of trade liberalisation talks, partly after the EU accepted to negotiate the end of farm export subsidies.
"On agriculture, we stand ready to deliver the commitments we made in July, which others need to match," Mandelson said.
"We must see a similar breakthrough on non-agricultural market access and, in this, advanced developing countries have a key role to play."
"What is currently on the table in this respect is far from adequate," he added.
The talks have restarted at a technical level on several issues in recent weeks, but have largely been in abeyance on key issues like agriculture until the new administration in the United States -- the world's top trading power -- is in place in January.
Mandelson, a former British trade and industry minister, and a close ally of Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that "much faster progress" was "essential" on non agricultural issues, the trade in good and services, and anti-dumping measures.
Wealthy western countries have been demanding that developing countries open up their markets to industrial products and services.
The issue of "non-agricultural market access" has been wielded as a bargaining chip on the farm subsidies issue during the liberalisation round launched by ministers at a WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar in 2001.
The Doha round of trade talks has been dubbed a "development round" because the WTO's member states agreed to ensure that poor countries were not marginalised from the fruits of the global free trade system.
Mandelson said he wanted to ensure that the trade talks had made a "critical advance" in time for the WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December 2005.
"This is attainable but challenging," he said, adding that he wanted to wrap up the talks in 2006.
The Doha talks initially carried a deadline for an agreement by the end of 2004.
However that target was dropped as the now 148 WTO member states lurched into a deadlock.
A rift opened up between rich and poor countries principally over agriculture, prompting the collapse of a ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico last year that was only patched up in Geneva this summer.
The new trade chief also signalled that the EU had not yet ruled out a European candidate in the race to replace the current WTO director general in September 2005.
Publicado por esta às novembro 23, 2004 09:44 PM