EU, US attempt Doha revival[fr] 

The meeting marks the highest-level effort to reach a deal after the Doha Round was suspended by WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy in July 2006, when the world’s two largest trading partners failed to reach agreement on lowering tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products (EurActiv 25/07/06). 

Lamy later set a March 2007 deadline for a rescue package, saying that if negotiators didn't succeed in clinching a breakthrough by then, the Round could be suspended for years. 

Indeed, the White House's trade negotiating authority, which allows it to submit international trade agreements to Congress for a simple 'Yes' or 'No' vote without any power of amendment, will expire in July 2007, making it much harder for any deal to obtain congressional approval – without which any global trade deal would be meaningless. 

Since the Round's collapse, negotiators have forged ahead with lower-level technical discussions, which Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson says have brought the EU and the US closer than ever. However, agreement will also have to be reached with other key players, including India, Brazil and China, which have previously refused to lower their tariffs on manufactured goods. 

Many believe that ministerial meetings on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland later in January may provide a chance for reaching agreement with these countries. 

Commission President José Manuel Barroso said: "President Bush and I agreed that we now face a moment of truth if we want to make progress on the Doha trade negotiations," adding: "We risk losing all the substantial economic benefits that are on the table, it is too important to fail, we cannot fail." He also stressed the need for the US to make further concessions if the Round is to succeed: "The US holds the key to making a deal possible in 2007." 

Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson reminded players of the need to act fast: "The window of opportunity is there during the first quarter of the year. It would take some years to reopen this window if we cannot make it in this first quarter," he said. 

But he remained confident that a deal was feasible: "We came to Washington today looking for new impetus for the Doha negotiations and I believe we found it," he said. "There’s not an agreement to be announced on key issues or key numbers, but there’s certainly much greater understanding and a measure of convergence now," he explained. 

He also said that his meetings with the new Democrat leaders of the US Congress - thought by many to be more 'free-trade sceptic' - had reassured him that they would back an ambitious multilateral agreement: "They know why Doha matters for the US and for all of us economically and politically," he said. 

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab  confirmed: "We’ve had a good conversation today. We are clearly making progress. Perhaps there is some stirring of momentum here. That’s a welcome change I think from the years of start and stop that we’ve experienced with the Doha Round negotiation." 

However, she cautioned that an "artificial" March deadline would not be sufficient to gather consensus: "Nobody is going to reach an agreement on the basis of an artificial deadline if the content isn’t there that is substantively and politically viable."