Mandelson criticises Australia over world trade talks

European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson criticised Australia today for taking the US side in stalled World Trade Organisation talks on global trade liberalisation.

The talks in Geneva, Switzerland, were suspended indefinitely last month because of an impasse between the EU and the US over winding back market barriers.

“At the moment we hear from some quarters, from the Australian government, a lot of bashing of Europe,” the former British government minister told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

“It’s a lot of ritualistic abuse, which we’re well used to, but until we see everyone, all the negotiating partners, being asked … to demonstrate some sort of flexibility, we’re really not going any further forward,” Mandelson added.

Mandelson said he would not be attending next month’s Cairns Group meeting of 18 agricultural exporting countries in Australia, a platform from which Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile had proposed to restart the round of WTO negotiations that began in Doha, Qatar, in 2001. But Mandelson said the EU would be represented.

Despite the US not being a member of the Cairns Group, Vaile invited US Trade Representative Susan Schwab and US Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to attend the September 20-22 meeting in northern Australia.

Both Schwab and Johanns have said they will attend the talks, which Vaile has described as the last chance to salvage the Doha round.

Australia has a free trade agreement with the US, which many analysts regard as Washington’s reward to Canberra for providing military support for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I think the Australian government, as a close friend and ally of the US, really has got to show some realism, or get the US to show some realism, on farm subsidies,” Mandelson said.

The EU says Washington derailed the Geneva talks by failing to offer deeper cuts in subsidies paid to farmers. The US, meanwhile, targeted Brussels’ failure to ease access to its agricultural market for foreign goods.

Mandelson said the Cairns Group meeting is not the only forum at which the Doha round could be revisited.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said Mandelson’s criticism of Australia’s role would not help the trade talks.

Downer acknowledged Mandelson was in a difficult position, representing 25 European nations with

differing views on trade liberalisation.

“The European Union has not been prepared significantly to improve its market access offer for agricultural products and for as long as it refuses to increase its market access offer, well then, we’re not going to get a settlement to this problem,” Downer said.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has also accepted an invitation to attend the meeting of Cairns Group trade ministers in the city of Cairns, in Queensland state.

The Cairns Group – which accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s agricultural exports – comprises Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay.