SWITZERLAND: World Trade Organisation (WTO) head Pascal Lamy said that all parties are losers facing the collapse of Doha round of negotiations

The head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Pascal Lamy said on Monday (July 24) that global trade negotiations' suspension would have serious consequences and that they would take some time to unblock. "The consequences of this situation are grave, the most obvious consequence at this stage is that we will certainly not conclude the round this year, as we were mandated to do by ministers in Hong Kong last December", WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said. "There is no winner and loser here. All of us today are losers", he added. Attempts by six trade powers to keep the WTO's Doha round on track failed today when talks were suspended. That raised the prospects that the negotiations, which have already lasted almost five years, could face further long delays. "I think it's clear that we've missed a very important opportunity to prove that multilateralism works, and that by working together, and working together is not an easy thing to do, the nations of this world can solve some of the serious problems that confront us", Pascal Lamy said. While the WTO will continue to be involved with countries on an informal basis, it is up to member states to take the initiative to get the round moving again. Anti-globalist supporters came to demonstrate in front of the WTO headquarters, alongside with former French agricultural trade unionist and figure of the anti-global movement Jose Bove. "I think this failure first represents the failure of a system. The World Trade Organisation has tried to integrate all human activities, including agriculture, but during the 20 years agriculture has been integrated to global trade negotiations, they failed every time because the majority of the world people refuses that agriculture be integrated as a good. The second reason of this failure is the selfishness of rich countries. The United States and European Union want to open southern countries' markets in the interests of their multinational corporations. This doesn't work anymore", Jose Bove said, explaining the collapse of talks by his view.

ITN Source | July 25, 2006

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