WTO

Emerging nations blamed for trade talks collapse

Article published on the 2008-07-30 Latest update 2008-07-30 15:45 TU

Intense negotiations in Geneva
(Photo: AFP)

World trade negotiators vowed that efforts to find a new global accord are not over after the collapse of talks in Geneva on Tuesday. But they recognised that emerging economies, such as India, China and Brazil, are a new force to be reckoned with in international economic talks.

French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier, who is a former European Union Commissioner, said that France, which currently holds the presidency of the EU, is not ready to see European agriculture sacrificed on "the altar of world liberalism".

But he claimed that, while the EU has been ready to reduce import tarriffs and subsidies to exports, emerging economies had not been ready to make big enough sacrifices to reach agreement.

French Trade Minister Anne-Marie Idrac told BFM radio that the collapse is "not the end of the world" but that "at this time of food crisis" it may be necessary to negotiate on agriculture outside of the WTO framework.

Elsewhere WTO chief Pascal Lamy vowed to press on with efforts for a new trade framework. He declared that he had been surprised by the determination of countries to pursue a deal despite "disappointment" after the failure of nine days of negotations.

Talks collapsed over disagreement between India and the US over so-called special safeguard mechanism, which would allow countries to  impose import controls to protest poor farmers in the event of an import surge or price fall.

China declared the result "a tragic failure", while Burkina Faso's Trade Minister Mamadou Sanou said that "we can hardly control our anger".

Global poverty campaigners were not disappointed, however.

Walden Bello, of Bangkok-based Focus on the  Global South, told RFI that the failure to expand world trade is "the best thing ever to happen for the struggle with climate change".

The real reason for the stalemate was the US and EU's refusal to make meaningful cuts in open and disguised subsidies, said Bello.

"The US was insisting on keeping billions and billions of dollars of subsidies, as was the European Union," he said. "This was supposed to be an institution that would remove subsidies and yet it ended up being an institution that institutionalised subsidies for the rich countries."