EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson has asked global trade ministers in Davos at the annual meeting of the Word Economic Forum (WEF) this week to give a clear signal that they are prepared to begin negotiating constructively on the Doha round.
"I hope what you see at Davos is a clear signal of the ministers commitment to negotiate constructively. I would like to see an instruction passed to negotiating teams to resume their negotiating efforts more strenuously than we have seen in the recent past," said Mr Mandelson, who is leading EU efforts to restart the talks.
Mr Mandelson has also urged Irish and French farmers to have faith in his negotiating skills if there is a resumption of talks on a world trade deal. The talks were suspended last July by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) after the US, EU, Japan and developing countries failed to agree a deal on cutting subsidies and tariffs on a range of goods and services. Disputes over cutting state support for agriculture in the US and EU dominated the WTO debate and threatens any resumption of talks.
Mr Mandelson said the price of failure would be a couple of hundred billion dollars in lost trade and the systemic failure of the WTO system. There would also be political consequences as the developing world was bound to question the motives of the developed world.
However, he said he felt there was an opportunity to succeed and US president George Bush's defeat in the mid-term elections had changed the context for the WTO talks.
"[ After our meeting in Washington] I made a judgment about his personal commitment and his sincerity. I believe he does want to get a deal," said Mr Mandelson, who nevertheless acknowledged the talks remained on a "knife edge".
He said trade negotiators faced a deadline of June when the Bush administration would lose its mandate from Congress to negotiate a deal. He stressed that the US would need to shift its position on agricultural subsidies to get agreement on a deal.
Mr Mandelson also sought to soothe serious concerns within the Irish and French farming community that he may sacrifice agriculture in pursuit of WTO deal.
"They have given their negotiator a mandate and I will faithfully adhere to that. I am not denying the pain, but whatever I negotiate will be bearable by European farmers. I give that undertaking," he said. "I will not ask for a new mandate." Mr Mandelson said European farmers tended to be too defensive on agriculture and needed to grasp the new opportunities that would flow from a world trade deal.
"We have a small agricultural sector in Europe, but it is becoming more competitive and there are more export opportunities. We should be looking outward," he added.
Meanwhile, in a speech in Brussels yesterday, WTO chief Pascal Lamy said he thought that Davos could provide a springboard to resume the WTO talks. However, he warned that an advance would need to be achieved by the spring due to the end of the US administrations mandate for the talks.
"I think that there might be, depending on their will, a signal of a full-scale activity," he said. "The window of opportunity is rather small. It is in the order of magnitude of [ the northern hemisphere] springtime."
