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Experts mull ways to put free trade on world agenda

Launch of new round this yr seen tough
LONDON. Mar 28: Trade experts yesterday sought new ways to put trade liberalisation back onto the world agenda after global talks collapsed spec -tacularly In Seattle Just four months ago. reports Reuters.
"The question Is whether Seattle was Just another bump in the road, or whether it represented something more funda-mental. I believe it was the latter,’ David Runnalls. head of the Institute of Sustainable Development. told a two-day seminar hosted by the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Senior politicians, civil servants and trade academics at -tending the conference said some calls by the United States and European Union to push ahead with new global talks.by the end of this year were overly optimistic.
Instead, the ground had to be
better prepared, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) reformed. and a global deal virtu -ally assured before negotiations began.
"Just to rush ahead bull-headcdly as soon as you can. when you haven't got the necessary assn rances, 1 Just think it's self-destructive." British Environment Minister Michael Meacher told the Royal Institute of International Affairs seminar. "One would be mad to do that."
The "Seattle debacle." as seasoned trade negotiators often now call It. saw a sea-change in the previous pattern of global trade talks that were usually hammered out behind closed doors.
The US openly bickered with the European Union over agriculture. Environmental and other Western lobby groups demanded a seat at the table and
lambasted the' Geneva-based WTO for a lack of transparency in its decision-making.
Poorer countries meanwhile voted down calls to bundle to -f’ether environmental and abour issues with trade, suspicious of Western attempts to Introduce standards that would curb their own economic development.
Trade and Environment Ministers have been scratching their heads ever since, wondering how to best move forward. Refonn of the WTO is at the top of many of their lists, as Is answering developing country concerns that environmental Issues should not dominate the talks at the expense of economic development.
"Development is a key issue, because without that none of the other worries about the environment or labour standards will ever be able to be met by de -
veloping countries," WTO Deputy Director General Ablasse Qucdraogo said.
Meacher said the best way to address the apparent tension between free trade and sustainable development was through a new. global trade round. Narrower talks, due to start in Geneva soon, gave less scope to remove distrust between North and South, the US and Europe, and a better chance to meld en -vironincntal and trade issues.
But once burnt, twice shy, and many politicians may be loathe to commit to global free trade talks after Seattle's failure. Robert Madelln. a senior European Commission trade official at the seminar, summed -up the problem succinctly.
"The question is not only what do we want to happen next but also: what does it take Jo build the necessary political will to do that?"