Brussels, 30/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - A fortnight after the abrupt end to the 5th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Commissioner Pascal Lamy has called upon Member States to take the time to clarify bases "between ourselves", by consolidating the priority granted to the multilateral, to which he personally continues to think that "many reasons lead one to say yes".
The Union's chief negotiator, aware that he "owes a rethink" to the Member States, is however of the opinion that "we should not hurry to relaunch negotiations without having taken the time to reflect". This "serious" failure is "much more worrying for Europeans" than for others, and does not deserve a "business as usual" response, as he told Monday's General Affairs Council, according to a diplomatic source.
A few guidelines have emerged from the discussion which overran by almost an hour, at the end of the afternoon: - the choice of the multilateral as the principal director of common trade policy remains broadly supported and if most agreed tacitly, others said so explicitly, such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain, whilst Poland put forward the idea "of examining bilateral relations with partners who have taken decisions which are diametrically opposed to those of the EU on agriculture and the Singapore subjects", said the same source; - Member States are divided on the details of the reflection to take place before taking action in Geneva; for the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden (who want to keep the concessions proposed in Cancun as long as negotiations start again where they ended (on the basis of the draft compromise presented in Cancun)), the Union should be quick to take the initiative and lead the relaunch of negotiations, whereas others concur with the Commissioner, including Spain, Poland and Hungary (which latter fears the loss of a tactical advantage if the EU reacts too soon); - the German idea of calling an informal meeting of Trade Ministers in the near future was received favourably by "quite a few delegations", including Austria, Finland, Spain, and could be countenanced by the Italian Presidency.