GENEVA, 13 October 2005 — Key trade ministers failed yesterday to make a breakthrough in troubled farm talks, the cornerstone of a hoped-for global trade pact, with many blaming the European Union.
But they agreed to meet again next week in Geneva to have another try as pressure builds to ensure that a blueprint for a successful conclusion of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round can be agreed at a December meeting in Hong Kong.
The United States, whose offer of deep farm subsidy cuts this week gave new momentum to the four-year-old talks, accused Brussels of not responding with a decisive move on tariffs. “I’m disappointed ... there have been no significant moves on farm market access,” US Trade Representative Rob Portman told journalists following three days of meetings in Switzerland. The ministers — from the EU, United States, Brazil, India and Australia — have been spearheading the hunt for accords on agriculture which must be reached to open the door to a wider deal including services and industrial goods.
Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile said that despite the lack of movement on market access, or import barriers, negotiators were getting down to the hard bargaining. “Although there is much to be done, we have at least moved to the next stage of the discussions,” he told journalists. “I think the prospects for success ... have been enhanced.”
The 148-member World Trade Organization must agree a blueprint at the Hong Kong meeting for the final stage of the round, but negotiations are snagged on a host of issues, of which agriculture is the most pressing.
Failure could kill the round, which has been touted as capable - if successful - of giving a multibillion-dollar boost to the world economy and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
In a new report this week, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said a new free- trade pact would benefit all nations except a handful of developing countries, mainly in Africa.
Under intense pressure, the 25-nation EU gave some ground on the tariffs, but US, Australian and developing country negotiators said that it fell far short of what was needed.
The World Bank says that 92 percent of the benefits to the world economy from farm reform will come from lower tariffs. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson acknowledged the lack of a breakthrough, but said at a news conference: “In the last couple of days we crossed some thresholds ... we have moved from stand-off but without reaching trade-offs.”
