UK 'disappointed' by WTO talks
Seeks EU farm concessions
Afp, Brasilia
British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett regretted Monday the failure of weekend WTO trade negotiations and called for the European Union to make greater concessions on agriculture. "I was deeply disappointed to learn that Sunday the WTO ministerial meeting had ended without agreement," Beckett said in a speech to the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, her first stop in a two-day visit to Brazil. Beckett said she wanted to discuss with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva his proposal of a meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight advanced economies and several countries of the Group of 20 (G20) emerging countries aimed at advancing the global trade talks. The top British diplomat also underscored the role of Brazil, a G20 leader, in the World Trade Organization's current Doha round of negotiations, begun in the Qatari capital in 2001. The goal is to slash barriers to agricultural, services and manufactured goods trade and harness trade for economic growth in the developing world. Talks were meant to end in 2004 but the target was pushed back to December 2006. Three days of negotiations in Geneva ended Saturday in failure. Beckett warned that the Doha Round could collapse, particularly as negotiators face the expiration of a special US trade negotiating authority in a year. On July 1, 2007, the White House is due to lose its special authority from US lawmakers to fast-track trade deals, which could hamper the WTO negotiations if they overrun. "We are coming to a crunch, a window for agreement that can be measured not in years or even in months, but in weeks and days, and not many of them," Beckett said. "If we allow this window of opportunity to pass before US trade promotional authority comes to an end, we can probably forget about any progress till 2008 at the very earliest, if at all," she said. "The key to a deal is clear ... the EU must allow greater agriculture access to others who are more competitive ... it is simply not credible for the EU not to go further on agriculture at the right time," she said. "There is no doubt at all in my mind that it is perfectly possible for us to have a deal in the Doha Round and it is even possible for there to be an ambitious deal,"Beckett continued.
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