Washington, 12/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lamy and the American representative for trade negotiations Robert Zoellick, in a joint press conference following their meeting in Washington, on 9 March, underlined the importance of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations. "We now need a clear signal from the United States", said Mr Lamy, who also spent an entire day with the members of Congress.
Concerning the Euro-American disputes, Mr Lamy raised the "most urgent" one, that of bananas, by indicating that, after having spoken with the Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler, "we agreed that we would take some more time in order to look at how we can solve this dispute". We are convinced that our new banana import system is in accordance wit the WTO rules, but we have decided in Brussels, before this meeting, that "if there is a chance to solve this problem to get ride of the sanctions (…) we must run it". Though he warned, "we do not have a lot of time, we do not have many weeks ahead of us".
Questioned over the restructuring of the steel industry, Mr Lamy admitted that it is clear a spot on my radar screen, which is getting bigger and bigger", and "it is clearly a looming big problem". "What we agreed to do is look at the substance before rushing into protection" and into the inevitable consequences, he said, adding: we must compare figures, create contacts between industries on both sides of the Atlantic so that they may talk…
More generally, Mr Lamy noted that the aim of this first meeting with Mr Zoellick was not to conclude arrangements here or there, but to see Euro-American relations in its broader view; I feel that we have truly managed to do so, he said.