Reuters / By Adrian Croft
BRUSSELS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The European Union hopes World Trade Organisation members can agree by the northern summer on the broad outline of a declaration launching new global trade talks that would be adopted by ministers in November in Qatar.
EU trade ministers, who met privately in Brussels last Sunday, agreed it was time to make a "renewed effort to achieve consensus" on the launch of a new round of trade talks at the November WTO ministerial meeting in Qatar, according to a summary of the meeting obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
"The new round should aim at promoting a broader spread of the benefits of globalisation, (and) at contributing to world economic growth...," the summary by the chairman of the meeting, Swedish Trade Minister Leif Pagrotsky, said.
The last WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in December 1999 failed to launch a new three-year round because the trade body's members could not even agree on an agenda.
The conference, disrupted by huge street protests against globalisation, ended in bickering between the EU and the United States over agriculture and between industrialised and developing countries over labour standards and other issues.
Pagrotsky's paper said the EU must continue to play a leading role in promoting a new round by mobilising political involvement on all sides.
It said the EU's executive Commission had "the full support of ministers to continue its exploratory talks on the new round, with a view to achieving consensus on the broad lines of a ministerial declaration before summer."
The Commission conducts trade negotiations on behalf of the EU's 15 member states.
Many trade diplomats have said the Seattle meeting was ill-prepared and that they would be reluctant to try again to launch a round at a ministerial conference without officials having smoothed their way by achieving a basic agreement beforehand.
PREPARATORY MEETING
Pagrotsky's paper said the EU would step up contacts with WTO partners, especially developing countries -- some of which have been reluctant to support a new round. It would also aim to develop close relations with the new U.S. administration of President George W. Bush, it said.
At an "appropriate date," the EU would encourage initiatives to bring together trade ministers from a representative group of WTO countries, including least developed nations, to maintain momentum for a new round, it said.
The EU continues to push hard for a comprehensive new round of trade talks and says it has seen more enthusiasm recently from some developing countries. But EU officials admit they know little about how energetically the Bush administration will campaign for a new trade round.
In a statement issued after visiting Washington last week, WTO Director-General Mike Moore welcomed support he said the new administration had shown for launching a trade round this year.
Pagrotsky's document said the basis for the EU's approach to a new round remained the position that EU governments approved shortly before the Seattle meeting, which called for wide-ranging talks on industrial tariffs, agriculture, services, competition and investment rules and other issues.
However, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said on Monday EU governments had authorised him to talk to other countries about launching a new round on the basis of revised proposals.
Lamy's new proposals attempt to meet some of the criticisms other countries have made of the EU's position. Significantly, they tone down the EU's call for the WTO talks to include discussion of minimum labour standards -- a red rag to developing countries which fear the issue could be used as a pretext for trade sanctions.:
