The US was the only major player to refuse to make the compromises necessary for a breakthrough on a stalled global trade deal at crunch talks last week, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said yesterday.
Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Mandelson said the EU had been ready to show flexibility on cutting farm support if other developed countries indicated they would do the same and developing countries would open up markets for industrial goods and services.
"This is economically doable, indeed I would argue desirable for these developing countries and politically essential for us and for other developed countries," he said.
Mandelson said the EU was ready to move closer to demands from the G20 group of developing nations -- but only if others "moved in concert" toward a fair offer.
"We pushed hard to establish a clear correspondence between the effort that we would make in agricultural market access and the effort that the US in turn would have to make in the reduction on domestic subsidies close to the G20 levels of average cut by us to be matched by close to G20 reductions of trade-distorting subsidies by the US," he said. "The US was the only major player to refuse to consider moving on this basis and declined to signal any room for further movement."
Instead the US had demanded further significant moves from others just to keep its current offer on the table -- an offer all others regard as "insufficient," Mandelson said.
"The unreadiness of the US to engage stopped developing countries from making any move or showing any flexibility of their own," he said.
Ministers may try to meet again toward the end of this month, he said, and a framework deal will need to be struck this summer to take forward negotiations.
He said he would not rule out talks between the heads of state of the world's leading industrial nations -- the G8 -- in St Petersburg next week.
"There is a lot at stake here and we shall have to work very hard and very fast in the coming days and weeks," he said.
Time is running out for a global trade deal, and the impetus for any breakthrough lies with the world's major economies, the chief of the WTO said yesterday.
"Timewise, we really are in a dangerous situation. The time for delay is over," Director-General Pascal Lamy said. "If WTO members are serious about creating a more open, equitable trading system, I believe there is no option but to move now."
Lamy is in Japan as part of a tour to bring key countries closer to agreement over a trade liberalization pact that has been billed as a recipe for lifting millions out of poverty. Crisis talks held in Geneva last week did not result in any breakthrough.
The WTO chief earlier met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, as well as other Japanese ministers.
"I got the distinct impression that Japan has flexibilities it can employ in these negotiations," Lamy said, but refused to go into specifics.
Lamy said that despite the deadlock he remained optimistic.
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