Latinnews Daily | October 10, 2003
The senate and the lower chamber of congress will debate Brazil's policy on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) on 20 and 21 October. The title of the joint debate is 'The legislatures' role in the FTAAaE(TM). Congressmen expect President Lula to open the session and hope that the deputy US Trade Representative, Peter Allgeier, will attend and speak. Allgeier is laughing off the chocolate cake that was smeared over his face by protesters in Rio at the end of August.
Allgeier will discuss the FTAA from the US perspective. He has criticised the Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, and written off the (dwindling G20+ group).This was set up by Brazil, China and India to provide emerging market countries with a single voice at the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in CancAn.
The foreign ministers from regional G20+ countries are scheduled to meet in Buenos Aires today. They want to restart WTO negotiations from the point at which they were broken off in CancAn. The European Union, by contrast, apparently wants to restart the whole Doha round from scratch.Latinnews Daily:
