By: NAOMI KOPPEL | Associated Press
DOHA, Qatar -- Trade ministers were predicting little or no sleep over the next two days as they battled over single words Monday in their attempts to agree on new trade liberalization talks.
As the European Union haggled over the use of the word "substantial" in an agreement on cutting domestic agricultural subsidies, rich and poor nations considered whether they could agree to override pharmaceutical patents for "public health" or only for "public health crises."
"It's impossible to say how we would react to words without knowing the other words around them," said U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Peter Allgeier when asked about the patent dispute. "We are talking today, this evening and probably tonight," French Trade Minister Francois Huwart said Sunday at the end of the third day of the meeting of the World Trade Organization's 142 member governments.
With differences still wide in areas such as agriculture, the environment and patent protection, some negotiators doubted whether anything could be settled before the scheduled end of the meeting Tuesday evening.
"Some ministers have already booked their hotel rooms until Thursday," senior Swiss negotiator Luzius Wasescha said.
Negotiators paused to accept Taiwan's membership Sunday, a day after approving rival China, before returning to working groups trying to hammer out differences dividing poorer nations from richer ones.
"None could report agreement, but a number could report progress," said WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell of Sunday's meetings.
On patent protection, the European Union and other countries are seeking to bridge the gap between the United States, Switzerland, Japan and Canada - worried about undermining their pharmaceutical industries - and developing countries led by Brazil and India, who charge strict patent enforcement denies lifesaving drugs to poor countries.
"There seems to be some movement," said a top Japanese negotiator, Shinichi Kitajima.
Sharp differences over agriculture remain between the EU, which wants to keep export subsidies, and the United States and 18 big exporting countries known as the Cairns Group, who want them phased out.
France, whose farmers get the lion's share of the EU's farm budget, was said to be increasingly isolated, though, in its insistence on conceding nothing in agriculture.
But French Trade Minister Francois Huwart said he would find it "astonishing" if the 15-nation EU changed its common negotiating position.
Developing countries are opposing the inclusion in talks of rules to protect foreign direct investment and ensure the equal application of competition laws, two important goals of the EU and business lobby groups.
Ugandan Trade Minister Edward Rugumayo said developing countries don't have the expertise to tackle these issues, and would prefer to leave them for a later date.
Despite the problems, negotiators still insisted they could get agreement and launch the round.
"People are here to have a success and I'm confident we will do that," said Allgeier.By: NAOMI KOPPEL:
