Other countries 'must match Europe on trade'

Other countries need to match Europe’s concessions for World Trade Organisation negotiations aimed at a global trade treaty to move forward, the Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said yesterday.

He reiterating a stance he has made public on previous occasions, saying that other nations must make concessions regarding trade of industrial goods and services.

“I can sell a deal in which Europe does a lot, does more than others,” he said, after meeting with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. “I can’t sell a deal in which we get nothing in return.”

Mandelson, opening a three-country tour of South America, stressed that concessions cannot be limited to European countries cutting subsidies to agricultural exports.

Concessions in the industrial sector and services, he said, “have so far not been forthcoming from the large, advanced developing countries.”

He said the negotiations can still reach “an ambitious, broad and balanced outcome which gives new oxygen to the world economy.”

“But time is running out,” he added.

A key round of talks on the treaty is scheduled for next month in Geneva.

Mandelson said that in his meeting with Bachelet, she urged him “to put yourself into the shoes of those you are trading with, those you are negotiating with.”

But “if I’m going convince (European nations) to show more flexibility, then we have to see what we are going to get back in return,” he told reporters. “At the moment, that’s too little.”