Archive - jul 2006 - Article

Campaigners from Friends of the Earth International today welcomed the collapse of the World TradeOrganisation (WTO)'s trade negotiations. This means that there is nowtime to review and reconsider the multilateral trading system in itsentirety.

World Development Movement (WDM) today welcomed the fact that the EU and USA have been unable to force a bad trade deal onto developing countries as the trade negotiations stalled in Geneva.

Starting Sunday (23 July) itself, this will be another decisive week for the WTO's Doha negotiations, as it will become much clearer whether the G6 members will be able to implement the "new flexibilities" that their political leaders reportedly pledged to provide for their countries' positions.

"Flexibilities" was the new key theme and indeed the key word after a short meeting of the G6 Ministers held at the WTO on Monday (17 July) night, to follow up on the lunch meeting at St Petersburg a few hours earlier that the G8 leaders had with the leaders of five developing countries.

No one who was not there seems to know what actually happened at the G8 Summit leaders' meeting with the leaders of five developing countries in the lunchtime "outreach working lunch" at St Petersburg on Monday (17 July).

Fresh from his discussions at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh provided a cautiously optimistic insight into the prospects of the deadlocked WTO negotiations.

World leaders

Leaders of the major world powers face a packed agenda including trade talks and a possible statement on world oil prices on Monday, the last day of a G8 summit overshadowed by violence in the Middle East.

Leaders of the Group of Eight major industrial countries on Sunday recommended a two-week extension for a deadline aimed at breaking the impasse over long-stalled global trade negotiations.

Group of Eight leaders met key developing countries on Monday to give a push to world trade talks at a big-power summit strained by divisions over the Middle East.