Brussels, 29/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commissioner for Trade, Pascal Lamy, has repeated his warnings against attempts to hurry to reopen negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda, after the deadlock in Cancun. According to Wednesday's Financial Times, Mr Lamy said that "it is clear that the temperature is rising. A number of countries have signalled their readiness to restart the work in Geneva, and their good-will, by offering flexibility". He added: "at this stage, I can well imagine that, if their good-will is real, they should not have to wait too long for the EU to clarify its positions". However, Mr Lamy was surprised to hear that the United States and 20 other Pacific countries indicated last week that they were ready to take up negotiations once more on the basis of the text by Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez, who chaired the work in Cancun. "I wonder what kind of magic powder was sprinkled on a text which was so roundly rejected in September, for it to be so roundly accepted in October", said Mr Lamy.
Furthermore, German Green Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Hannes Lorenzen of the NGO EuropeanAgriCultural Convention said, in a piece published by Libération on Wednesday, that, after the failure of Cancun, the EU should stop subsidising its agricultural exports, adding: "the sovereignty of food calls for protection measures against dumping in its various forms (...) external protection measures for agriculture should be toned down, not simply dropped", taking inspiration from the notion of "qualified external protection", introduced in an EP resolution on the WTO and reform of the CAP. They also suggested that an "international convention on agriculture and world food" could help to "prepare new participative discussions on global food safety and fair trade in the domain of agriculture". They believe the European Parliament and the FAO should start the ball rolling on this initiative.