Interview: EU still sees hope for world trade talks[fr] 

"I think we can see where a reasonable landing zone would be for most of the WTO membership, across most areas of the negotiations [...] We are now close to the end point," the Director General of the Commission's trade department told EurActiv in an exclusive interview. 

The main reason that buoyed his confidence was an apparent softening of the US stance on agricultural subsidies. Indeed, US negotiators indicated their readiness to lower these to levels between $13 billion and $16.4 billion on the condition that other countries make concessions during the round, whereas previously, they had insisted that trade-distorting farm support could not be cut to less than $22.7 billion. This had been a major stumbling block in the talks. 

O'Sullivan hinted that the EU could be ready to show similar flexibility on its controversial farm tariffs in the last stages of negotiations. "We are already very close to the outer limit of what we can do. However, if everyone else makes a final effort, I am sure that we have not said our last word on agricultural issues." 

He also confirmed that the EU would be pressing hard during the Doha negotiations for a global 0% tariff on environmental technologies and energy-saving equipment, such as solar panels and wind turbines. "This is an important objective for us," he said. 

The aim is to foster the development of such technologies by making them more easily available to all nations. This would also create new business opportunities for European industries, which are at the forefront of progress in this field. 

However, it is likely to prove difficult to reach agreement on a universally-accepted definition of what "environmental goods and services" cover. 

O'Sullivan nevertheless views such a scheme as one of the more appropriate means of contributing to the fight against climate change. He strongly condemned suggestions that trade, and especially what some call 'unnecessary trade' - transport of products halfway around the world that are available locally – could be a cause of, rather than a solution to, global warming. 

"It is not the trade in itself that is the problem [...] The idea that you would want to prevent goods from being transported seems to me to approach the problem from a completely wrong angle [...] It is a question of whether we are pricing the transport costs correctly to reflect any environmental damage that is done when we carry goods from one part of the world to the other. And that is the only issue [...] A reduction of world trade would mean a reduction of world economic wealth and an increase in poverty, and a general deterioration of people's standards of living," he insisted. 

To read the interview in full, please click here.