By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Jan 14 2004 (IPS)

A leading civil society group has slammed efforts by the European Union and the United States to revive the stalled World Trade Organisation talks.

Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) says comments made earlier this week by trade representatives from the European Union (EU) and the United States on the Doha Development Round are "outrageous".

EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy and U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick had indicated earlier this week that they wanted to rekindle the failed World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations.

Zoellick sent out a letter Monday appealing to the 146 WTO members to reinvigorate the talks. The United States "does not want 2004 to be a lost year", Zoellick said. He urged a "common sense" approach to unresolved trade issues.

Zoellick called for elimination of agricultural export subsidies, and urged substantial cuts in support to domestic farms. He reiterated the Bush administration position that both developed and developing countries should open their markets.

FoEI says Zoellick was only looking for a way to "revive a corporate-driven market opening agenda in the WTO." It says WTO talks "simply cannot deliver what people really need – healthy, thriving economies everywhere and sustainable levels of natural resource use."

The trade round launched in 2001 was scheduled to conclude this year but is months behind schedule.

Talks in the Mexican beach resort Cancun broke down in September mainly over the estimated 350 billion dollars a year rich countries spend on farm subsidies, and on the new issues EU wants to include. These include trade and competition policy, trade facilitation, and transparency in government procurement.

"Now is the time for the United States and the EU to realise that they must give up their corporate-driven trade agenda, exchanging it for a progressive approach to developing fair and sustainable economies that work for everyone," Alexandra Wandel from FoEI told IPS.

Official-level efforts to relaunch the talks in December failed over farm subsidies again, industrial tariffs and textile trade.

Both the United States and the EU say they are committed to cutting subsidies, but offer no commitment on how fast and how comprehensive such action should be.

FoEI says transnational corporations and developed countries, particularly EU countries and the United States have been the main beneficiaries of trade liberalisation so far. The losers have been the developing countries and poor farmers.

The EU is trying to appear open to compromise, climbing down on controversial investment rules and advocating flexibility in agricultural negotiations.

Speaking in Strasbourg Tuesday, Lamy warned developing countries not to pursue defensive trade polices.

Lamy said WTO members would be holding "technical talks" over the next two months. He added that the EU wants the WTO to complete two-thirds of talks by the middle of this year.

"We expect the G-20 (group of developing nations that came together in Cancun) to contribute in a positive manner to the negotiations in their entirety by taking initiatives and not remaining a solely defensive alliance, nor limited to agriculture," Lamy said.

"We have reaffirmed our wish to negotiate seriously in the areas of agriculture, including the negotiation of a list of products of interest for developing countries upon which we could eliminate export taxes," Lamy said.

FoEI was not convinced. "Lamy’s comments are outrageous given that the EU itself pursues an aggressive trade and investment agenda on behalf of European corporate lobby groups," Wandel said.

FoEI says the EU and the United States should not attempt to revive the talks. "Now is the time for governments around the world to realise that the current WTO does not and cannot deliver fair and sustainable economies," Wandel said.

"What is needed is a real and far-reaching shift in the way governments approach the management of our economies at the national, regional and international levels," he said.

There have been suggestions that up to 30 trade and economy ministers may use this month’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos Jan. 21 to 25 to hold a mini WTO ministerial on the sidelines of the main event.

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