By Adrian Croft
OPORTO, Portugal (Reuters) - European Union trade ministers met on Saturday to discuss how to push forward stalled global trade negotiations and to plot the bloc's strategy in crucial talks with China on its bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The talks, held behind closed doors in the historic Oporto customs building, focused on what the EU can do to build alliances and rebuild shattered international confidence after the failure of the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle last December.
But ministers differed on whether, or to what extent, the EU should show flexibility in its own negotiating position in a bid to restart efforts to launch a new round of global trade liberalization talks.
"Some are afraid of the term (flexibility)," one EU diplomat said. "They think that's going to mean selling our position."
"But if we send signals we are not going to move on anything, why is anybody going to talk to us?" the diplomat said.
The EU has pushed the widest agenda for the new trade round, saying it should include not only agriculture, services and industrial goods, but investment and competition rules and discussion of environmental and labor standards too.
EU and U.S. insistence on bringing labor standards into the WTO has incensed many developing countries which fear rich countries could use the issue to keep out their products.
This contributed to the failure of the Seattle meeting, as did disputes between the EU and the United States over agriculture.
Publicly, the EU and United States say it is possible to try again to launch a new trade round this year. But some EU ministers say privately they fear it may have to wait until U.S. presidential elections in November are out of the way.
Lamy Overtures To Developing Countries
EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy is deeply conscious of the need to offer concessions to developing countries to win their support for a new trade round.
"We have to offer some flexibility to the Commissioner," Dutch Trade Minister Gerrit Ybema told reporters on Friday evening. "We have to offer him a certain room for maneuver."
But in a letter inviting fellow ministers to the Oporto meeting, Portuguese Economy Minister Joaquim Pina Moura said his view was that, for now, ministers should avoid changing the negotiating mandate worked out after much debate last October.
Ministers were also preparing the bloc's negotiating position for Lamy's visit to Beijing on March 27 for what could be the final round of bilateral talks with China on its 14-year-old bid to join the WTO.
The 15-nation EU is the largest trading power which has yet to reach agreement with China on a market-opening pact.
Lamy is set to visit Beijing at a time of rising tension between China and Taiwan. Pro-independence candidate Chen Shui-bian was officially declared the winner of Taiwan's presidential elections on Saturday, ending more than half a century of Nationalist rule.
Top Chinese leaders and state media had warned Taiwanese voters against selecting Chen, saying his election could bring a furious response from Beijing -- including war.
The Chinese threats have strained relations with the United States, but there was no immediate sign that the Taiwanese election result would have any impact on the EU's talks with China.:
