The G-8 has given the Doha Round a helpful boost.
Alan Beattie, Neil Buckley and Daniel Dombey report: Emergency talks on Doha follow Lamy warning (Financial Times, July 17).
Recall Lamy's triangle:
... Mr Lamy has said that to reach a deal, the EU needs to offer deeper cuts in farm tariffs, the US sharper reductions in farm subsidies and the Group of 20 developing countries better access to their manufacturing and services markets.
Talk of compromise:
... the US, Brazil and some European Union countries signalled they would compromise to reach a deal...
...President George W. Bush and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil had signalled they were prepared to compromise, officials said. But a sharp difference of opinion persisted within the EU.
José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, Tony Blair, UK prime minister, Angela Merkel, German chancellor, and Romano Prodi, Italian prime minister, all struck upbeat notes, officials said.
But Jacques Chirac, French president, said the EU had reached the outer limit of its mandate. “We have made enough concessions, unless there is a very important counter-offer by our American friends,” Mr Chirac told reporters after the meeting. France has intermittently orchestrated a group of EU member states to restrain the Commission during the Doha talks...
The EU has already prepared an offer that would take its cuts in farm tariffs close to the demands of the G20. Negotiators have also known for some time that Brazil is willing to cut protection for manufacturers.
But there was little explicit sign of concessions by two of the most determined hold-outs in the talks, the US and India. The US insists it needs new export markets for farmers. India and some other poor countries have turned that down and insisted on the right to protect farmers by exempting them from tariff cuts.
Lots of work for trade ministers:
Monday’s decision, which will have ministers meeting on July 23-24 and again on 28-29 in Geneva...
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