WTO to propose deal to finalise global trade talks

The World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva is expected to publish proposals next week which could form the basis of a global trade deal.

The blueprints will focus on agriculture issues and market access for industry and services and follow the failure by four leading trading powers at the WTO - the EU, the US, Brazil and India, known as the G4 - to agree on a deal during talks in Potsdam, Germany, last week.

The chairmen of the WTO’s committees on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (Nama) will write their papers based on what members have told them they are prepared to accept.

"What we would like to see is a viable proposal from Geneva that would rally support and a buy-in from the negotiating partners," said a European Commission spokesman.

The drafting of the papers started in 2003 and work on finalising them began earlier this year. They will outline the common ground on the two most important aspects of the trade talks, agriculture and Nama.

A WTO official said that a deal by the G4 would have made the final text of the papers easier to draft. At the same time, the G4 partners may have been able to tell the committee chairmen more openly what their final offers were rather than revealing them at the Potsdam meeting, the official added.

While the papers were not expected to address the "headline issues", such as cuts in agricultural tariffs and subsidies, it would address matters such as sensitive products, which were "vital issues", said one European official based in Geneva.

The WTO does not expect its members openly to welcome the papers and predicts one or two redrafts before the summer. "But as long as people don’t come out saying, ‘this is not a basis for negotiations’, then we can narrow the differences," said an official.

Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson will meet the Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim during the EU-Brazil summit next week (4 July) in Lisbon and has spoken to his counterparts in the other three G4 countries since the talks broke up on 21 June. The Commission has said that, although a deal was not struck in Potsdam, progress was made. "The headlines from the talks were more negative than the reality. There was quite a bit of work done and now we need to exploit that convergence," said a Commission spokesman.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva is expected to publish proposals next week which could form the basis of a global trade deal.