By Adrian Croft
OPORTO, Portugal (Reuters) - The European Union said on Saturday it was sticking to its proposals for a new round of global trade liberalization talks and would only make concessions if other countries were prepared to give ground too.
Joaquim Pina Moura, economy minister of current EU president Portugal, said the 15-nation bloc would not drop any element of the negotiating mandate it agreed last October in preparation for the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference in Seattle, which failed in December to launch a new trade round.
"The starting point is going to be the October 26 conclusions. It's only on that basis that we will try to move ahead," Pina Moura told a news conference after a meeting of EU trade ministers here, their first get-together since Seattle.
Ministers agreed their goal was to launch a round as soon as possible, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said, but he conceded it would not be possible to launch a round right now.
The EU has been pushing the most ambitious agenda for a new round, saying it should include agriculture, services and industrial tariffs as well as investment and competition rules and discussion of environmental and labor issues.
At Seattle, it clashed with the United States and the Australian-led Cairns group of major food exporters on agriculture while the EU's demand to discuss minimum labor standards alienated many developing countries which feared the issue could be used as a tool to keep out their exports.
Several EU member states, including the Netherlands and Sweden, pushed for the EU to show more flexibility to win support to get the trade round back on track. But other countries, including France and Belgium, opposed giving Lamy more leeway in his talks with other WTO members and said the EU should stick to its agreed mandate, sources at the Oporto meeting said.
Flexibility Goes Both Ways
"Is there a will to demonstrate flexibility on one point or another? The answer would be 'yes' -- on condition that our partners demonstrate they are showing the same flexibility," Lamy told reporters after the talks, held behind closed doors at the historic Oporto customs building.
Lamy and the trade ministers also discussed the strategy he will adopt in talks in China the week of March 27 on Beijing's bid to join the WTO. EU officials would not disclose any details, but EU sources have said the bloc is seeking more market-opening concessions from China in areas such as financial services and telecommunications.
The EU is the largest trading power which has yet to reach agreement with China on its 14-year bid to join the WTO. Lamy said he planned to carry out his negotiating mandate with China regardless of the result of the Taiwan presidential election, where the victory of pro-independence candidate Chen Shui-bian on Saturday is likely to increase tensions with China.
Lamy, the EU's chief trade negotiator, has been consulting widely on the prospects for launching a new global trade round, talking to the United States, Japan and India, among others, and planning a visit to Brazil next week.
Lamy rejected accusations that nothing had happened since Seattle to get the trade round back on track. "It's like someone who expects a delicate meal and keeps popping his head into the kitchen and saying: 'Nothing's happening.' I'm afraid, right up until the last minute, the meal isn't served," he said.
The EU, the United States and WTO chief Mike Moore have all said it is possible to launch a round this year, but privately some EU ministers believe it may not happen until after the November U.S. presidential election.:
