Resume Trade Talks : Pascal Lamy

Top US and European Union (EU) trade officials urged developing countries on Tuesday to make clear that they want to resume world trade talks that collapsed two months ago in Mexico. European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said the EU’s decision to review its own trade priorities after that setback was “clear testimony that I intend to try and reignite the process” of negotiations. But following a meeting with US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Lamy said both the EU and United States “will be waiting for a number of positive signals coming from other parts of the trade community,” such as the so called G20 and the G90 groups of developing countries.

Global trade talks collapsed in September at the World Trade Organization’s biennial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Lamy said a long list of factors “killed Cancun,” including the reluctance of G20 countries led by Brazil, India and China to open their agricultural markets while demanding that the US and the EU open theirs. “The challenge for the G20 now is to show that it has the capacity to make things move, and not just the capacity to say “no,’ Lamy said in a speech to the European Institute.