Brussels, 21/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 20 April, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy rejected all possibility of amending the agenda of the multilateral Doha Round trade negotiations, sweeping aside the recent suggestions made by Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. In an interview with German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 14 April, De Gucht called for a re-assessment of Doha Round objectives. “We need to review the objectives of the Round, and change what is on offer. We have two options: either we set ourselves new, ambitious goals or we try to agree on a 'Doha Light',” he said, indicating that the second option would mean a lesser opening of markets for agricultural products, and that the first, with its new, ambitious objectives, would bring the removal of customs duties on environmentally- and climate-friendly products. For Lamy, revising the Doha agenda would be “horribly complex” and “probably politically unpalatable for developing countries who want this Round to resolve a fairer system of rules for them”. On Tuesday, Lamy said that none of the WTO's 153 member countries had proposed revising the Round's agenda at the stock-taking meeting at the end of March (see EUROPE 100112). He was taking part in a Cairns Group (Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay) ministerial meeting. Following the two-day meeting, the net agricultural exporting countries, on Tuesday, expressed their disappointment that a definitive agreement was still far off. “While there has been some progress since last year's Cairns Group Ministerial Meetings in Bali and Geneva … conclusion of the Round is still not within our grasp,” lament Cairns Group trade ministers in a joint press release. (E.H./transl.rt)