Pascal Lamy seeks support to revive WTO Doha talks
19 Jan 2007
Pascal Lamy, director general, WTO, today sought prime minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in seeking concessions from India to revive the stalled Doha Round of negotiations. During his half hour meeting with the PM, Lamy apprised him of the fresh efforts for reviving the stalled trade talks. He said that major players at WTO, including India and Brazil, should go an extra mile to enable conclusion of the over a decade-long negotiations.
India and Brazil, who have been representing interest of the developing countries, while EU and the US are voices of the developed world, will have to play a crucial role to break the logjam.
At the same time there are divisions within the US and the EU. According to the EU, US inflexibility is responsible for the breakdown between the two sides, while the US says Europe has failed to open up its markets.
Both sides, however, are under pressure to reach a deal since president Bush's special "fast-track" authority to negotiate US trade deals expires on 30 June this year, giving the US Congress the right to change such agreements.
US and EU negotiators realise that a deal must be finalised by end February or early March for the paper work to move through the US and EU bureaucracies to be signed in time before Bush's fast track powers lapse, since a Democrat-controlled US Congress is unlikely to extend the president's fast track powers.
In recent weeks US trade representative Susan Schwab and EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson have been attempting to get the negotiations back on track. (See: EU and US attempt agreements to revive stalled WTO talks)
While India has offered to make concessions in industrial imports, it has remained steadfast in protecting agriculture from cheap US and EU imports. At an interactive session with FICCI last night, Lamy said 2007 would be a "defining year" for multilateral trade negotiations, and added the talks cannot afford a crash.