Europe's trade chief said the chances of a breakthrough in key world trade talks next week were improving but warned banana-exporting countries not to hold the talks hostage to their campaign for lower EU tariffs.
"I think the chances for a breakthrough are improving but that breakthrough is not yet in the bag," European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters today.
Trade ministers from around the world are due to meet at the World Trade Organisation from next Monday for a potentially decisive attempt at a breakthrough in the long-delayed Doha round of negotiations for a global trade deal.
Without a deal next week, the round risks further years of delay as it gets overtaken by the US presidential changeover and other factors.
Mandelson said a deal at the WTO on the core issues of agriculture and industrial goods would be a rare piece of good news for the global economy, which has been darkened by slowing growth, soaring inflation and collapsing housing markets.
But he said he did not underestimate the complexity of issues yet to be resolved in the talks, launched in 2001 and which have struggled from crisis to crisis.
Mr Mandelson warned banana-exporting countries not to add to the risk of failure next week by pressuring the EU into bigger cuts to its import tariffs for bananas. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, trying to smooth the way for the Doha round of negotiations, proposed the EU make a new round of cuts to its banana import tariffs.
Some Latin American exporting countries have said the proposal does not go far enough.
Mr Mandelson told reporters the EU would not block Mr Lamy's proposals.
"If others choose to do so, then they will assume a grave responsibility for the failure of the Doha round," he said.
The EU has been at loggerheads with the Latin American exporters for over a decade because it offers preferential terms for rival exporters in former European colonies.
Reuters