Brussels, 20/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - Before joining the other leading G4 negotiators (European Union, US, Brazil and India) on 19 June in Potsdam, Peter Mandelson informed Union foreign affairs ministers meeting last Monday in Luxembourg that there were three possible conclusions to the ministerial meeting of the “big four”. The first would be that through negotiations that challenge the limits of the negotiators' flexibility, the trade commissioner and his US, Brazilian and Indian partners (Susan Schwab, Celso Amorim and Kamal Nath respectively) may be able to achieve a compromise on mutual concessions on agriculture, industrial products (NAMA) and services. This compromise would serve as a basis for a draft multilateral agreement in Geneva between the 150 member countries of the WTO. A dream scenario, which faces, however, the well known reservations of each of the four actors about offering to make concessions in specific domains: domestic agricultural subsidies for the Americans, agricultural market access for the Europeans (partly for India too), and industry and services market access for the two emerging giants. The two other possible scenarios are “incremental progress” and “total failure”, which would be damaging to the Union because they would allow Pascal Lamy to “retake the initiative” and possibly impose a solution that would “put the Union under pressure to make more concessions on agriculture”. If the G4 does not reach the much awaited compromise on modalities for liberalisation of trade in agriculture and industrial products, it will become very difficult for the WTO director general to calm down the impatience of the 146 other WTO members. There is also the fear that the Union, together with the USA, is perceived as the main culprit for the failure of the round by all of the developing countries. This perception has just reinforced Peter Mandelson's determination to obtain an intermediary agreement in Germany. The G4 meeting will be held at the same time as the European Council (21-22 June), which is focusing on the relaunch of the Constitutional Treaty and is expected to provide a real battle ground between the EU27. The trade commissioner is expected to push for any possible compromise at Potsdam not to be unveiled before the end of the discussions in Brussels. Nonetheless, it is expected to form part of the results of the G4 meeting (which could go on until Sunday) with Union trade ministers on 25 June in Luxembourg. (eh)