THE European Union will aim to design bilateral trade deals with other regions and countries that can be applied to a future world trade agreement, even if last-ditch efforts to forge a global pact fail later this year, an EU trade official said yesterday.
David O'Sullivan, head of the European Commission's trade unit, said the EU was working to broker deals that would add to the Doha round of World Trade Organisation negotiations, not replace it.
If the Doha round collapses, Mr O'Sullivan said the one-on-one deals would be used ''to build a network of bilateral liberalisation, on which we can renew and build a new multilateral commitment.''
The EU is in talks with South Korea, India, Russia, the Gulf states and the ASEAN group of South Asian nations. It also wants to make its free-trade pacts with Central American and Andean trade blocs more open. South Korea recently struck a bilateral agreement with the U.S.
''We've only launched these bilateral negotiations precisely because we are reaching the end of the road with Doha, hopefully with a success, maybe with a failure, but in that case we need another agenda,'' Mr O'Sullivan told the European Parliament's trade committee.
He predicted ''a certain shock to the system'' if the Doha round failed, saying that would trigger serious reflection about the WTO's role and future. ''But we have to be realistic,'' he said.The Advertiser (Australia)
