In a recent statement of Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner has admitted, it was a total disappointment for the EU as well as every negotiating team for not sealing a conclusive and acceptable deal on WTO Doha Round last July. Doha Development Round was conceptualized by WTO to remove trade barriers, and thereby to achieve the objectives of globalization.
The Doha negotiations are procrastinated by various issues since its inception in 2001. The fight between two dissimilar realities had come to the fore in the recent talks when both the US and India stalled all proceedings due to serious differences. The bone of contention is that the big developing countries including China, India and Brazil do not want their markets to be flooded by imports of farm and industrial goods. India is grappled with farmer suicides for the past one decade owing to various issues, and one of them being low prices for their harvest. In the present scenario, India is most unlikely to make any concessions as the government fears serious consequences with the parliamentary elections around the corner.
Mandelson made his expression right by calling the talks’ failure as a setback to the international trading system, greater than the lost trading opportunities. However, he proved there is no change in his mindset when he claimed the failure was collective while emphasizing on the lack of agricultural market access to those developing countries that do not have large-scale, competitive farm sectors.
Nevertheless, he declared that the EU is prepared to try and revive the talks shortly, without providing any panacea to the present stalemate. He further added, besides the US-India differences, global support for the deal was very fragile, directly referring to some trade negotiators’ opposition to any abrupt talks as the US elections are nearing, and the prospects are bleak. Susan Schwab, the US trade representative has since been quoted as urging officials to resume the talks this month to take advantage of some of the advances made before the break down.