Mixed reaction to collapse of trade talks
Nine days of virtually non-stop talks involving trade ministers and hundreds of trade experts from more than 30 countries broke down over the refusal of China and India to open up agriculture markets to US imports as much as Washington had wanted.
The collapse was welcomed by Irish farmers with IFA leader Pádraig Walshe saying they were “relieved”.
However, business leaders expressed their disappointment at the news, with IBEC describing the failure to reach agreement as a “significant blow” to the world economy.
Tánaiste and Enterprise and Employment Minister Mary Coughlan said last night that everyone involved in the talks was “naturally disappointed” following the breakdown. She added, however, that the impasse was not caused by the European Union, but was between the United States on one side and China and India on the other.
“Now it’s time for reflection,” said Ms Coughlan, who agreed that the process appeared to be over “for the foreseeable future”.
The talks collapsed at about 5pm yesterday afternoon in Geneva.
The American delegation said the “safeguard clause” protecting developing nations from unrestricted imports had been set too low.
Yesterday afternoon the main negotiating nations, the US, EU, China, India, Japan, Australia and Brazil — gave up efforts to bring the so-called Doha Development Round to a close.
EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson said that the close of the talks wasn’t a negotiation, but “a burial”.
Mr Mandelson’s own negotiating tactics — offering 60% cuts in EU agriculture tariffs — were constantly attacked by French President Sarkozy, who even blamed Mr Mandelson for stirring Irish farmers into rejecting the Lisbon treaty in last month’s referendum.
Mr Mandelson said last night: “The EU is in the unusual position of being on the edge of a Doha argument rather than in the middle. Although we have obvious commercial interests in these [developing countries’] markets for our processed agricultural goods, we can live with the proposed safeguard levels.
“The basic problem is that the Indians, the Chinese and other defensive developing countries want the safeguard to be triggered at a level that the US thinks is too low.”
The Doha Round began in 2001 with a 2005 deadline set for a deal. But the talks struggled on beyond the cut-off point, collapsing in acrimony in mid-2006 over trade protectionism and barriers, then re-launched at the start of 2007.
International development agency Christian Aid said blame for the collapse lay squarely with big agricultural exporting countries “putting self interest above other considerations”.
