Brussels, 06/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - Whether it was EU and Brazilian leaders at a summit meeting in Lisbon or trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC), whose members include, in particular, Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States, the main players have, this week, increased their calls for the Doha Round to be saved. It is a matter of some urgency since negotiations on world trade liberalisation have now been reduced to the multilateral procedure of Geneva. It will now be up to the WTO to try to revive the Round which has been flagging since the G4 (EU, United States, Brazil and India) failure in Potsdam on 19 June, a task made all the more difficult by the US administration's loss of its special trade negotiation powers, the Trade Promotion Authority, granted it by Congress. The responsibility for finding a way out of the impasse will now fall on the chairmen of the WTO negotiating committees on agriculture and industrial goods (NAMA) New Zealander Crawford Falconer and Canadian Don Stephenson, who will each bring forward a compromise text by mid-July. On Monday, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said he felt it essential that the members of the G4 “play a constructive role” in this final phase. At WTO headquarters, a tight schedule was decided this week for the next stage of discussions. The negotiating committees on agriculture and NAMA will meet in the week of 23 July to give their reactions to the compromises of Messrs Falconer and Stephenson, then they will resume their talks from 3 September after the summer break in August. After that, the two chairmen will revise their documents in the light of the stances adopted by negotiators. (eh)