By Robert Evans
GENEVA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - European Commission President Romano Prodi said on Thursday he and World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Mike Moore were agreed that it was important for the global economy to push for a new trade round.
And he told a Geneva news conference after meeting Moore that they were "not pessimistic" that agreement on starting a round could be reached in time for the WTO's fourth ministerial conference in Qatar in November.
"The idea of pushing for a new round was completely shared by Mike Moore and myself," the former Italian prime minister said, although both recognised there were major issues to be solved before an agreement could be reached in the WTO.
Prodi was in Geneva as the first Commission president in office to visit the United Nations European headquarters and agencies in the city as well as independent institutions like the WTO and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Later, he was due to travel on to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, where several top trade officials -- including his own commissioner Pascal Lamy -- are gathering alongside global business and political leaders.
Prodi said one reason for optimism over agreement on a round -- so far stoutly resisted by most of the developing countries who make up a strong majority of the 140 members of the WTO -- was the choice of a new U.S. trade chief.
President George Bush has appointed to the post of Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, a strong believer in free trade who has good relations with Lamy and has in the past been a lead negotiator with the EU.
BUSH ADMINISTRATION FAVOURS FREE TRADE
The new U.S. administration has also made clear it is opposed to trying to link trade agreements with labour and environmental conditions, a tie-up opposed by poorer WTO states but promoted strongly by the former Clinton White House.
But some of the 15 EU member states, especially France, also want the WTO's open trading rules -- binding on all members and underscored with the possibility of sanctions -- to include provisions on observance of basic labour standards and environmental protection.
Developing countries say this amounts to protectionism and is really an effort to deprive them of the advantages they gain from producing goods more cheaply.
Alongside their demand for withdrawal of demands for such linkage, these countries also want agreement by the major trading powers to give them more time to implement some of the accords reached in the 1986-93 Uruguay Round.
They are also calling on the major traders -- especially the United States and the European Union -- to open their markets more quickly to poorer states' exports, especially textiles.
Prodi said he and Moore had discussed how the "real problems" facing negotiators who want a round agreed before the Qatar gathering could be overcome, and had recognised that these included agriculture.
Ongoing WTO talks on further liberalisation of markets for farm produce are widely expected to hit a barrier in March when proposals tabled by a wide range of countries, including the EU, move into the negotiating stage.
The United States, Canada and the 18-member Cairns Group of agricultural produce exporters and many developing countries are seeking a strong Brussels commitment to end the subsidies it provides to EU farmers.:
