Brussels, 28/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - More than100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs)- including ATTAC, Friends of the Earth and Action aid - from some 30 countries have sent an open letter to the 149 member countries of the WTO and Director-General Pascal Lamy, asking them to refuse to accept " a poor agreement". "The attempts of the European Union, the United States and Mr Lamy to relaunch the Doha Agenda as a development round are completely hypocritical", reads the letter from the NGOs, while calling for: - the legitimacy of the ministerial meeting of Geneva from 29 June to 2 July (see other article) to be called into question, as it "does not allow the effective participation of all member countries"; - the member countries to oppose a text proposed by the Director-General of the WTO alone; - a "change in strategy for the multilateral trade system", to allow "new rules to stress policies which promote human rights and development based on people and which is ecologically sustainable". Quoting reports written by the World Bank, the United Nations and the study by Sandra Polaski of Carnegie Endowment entitled "The winners and losers of the Doha Round", which show that if the current proposals are agreed to, the majority of gains to be anticipated from the conclusion of the Doha Round will go to the developed countries or the larger emerging countries, whilst the "net losers" will be the developing countries (DCs). The NGOs also stress that the simulations made on the basis of the offers of the United States and the Union on the reduction of their internal support will not, in reality, change the current level of their agricultural expenditure. They also criticised the proposed reduction in customs duty in the field of NAMA, which will have harmful effects on employment in the DCs. Furthermore, these countries will lose a proportion of the 63.4 billion dollars they yield as customs duty. Lastly, the NGOs are opposed to compensation offered in any "aid to trade" package of the order of 2.8 billion dollars for "adjustment costs". Taking part alongside Ms Polaski andYash Tandon (South Centre, Geneva) in a press conference held in Brussels on 28 June by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, German Green MEP Frithjof Schmidt spoke on behalf of his group to call for more time to be given to the negotiations. "Taking a decision too quickly, without reflecting the interests of all members of the WTO, may not be up to the promises of the Doha Agenda for development. We have been negotiating for five years, we may as well give the talks another two years to find a broad consensus", he said. "The reason for this is that the American negotiation mandate, the 'fast-track', expires next year. It is unacceptable for the American government to determine the negotiating timetable in this way", put in Belgian member Pierre Jonckheer, who also criticised the policy of seeking a compromise between a "handful of agricultural and industrial exporters" to the detriment of the DCs.