BRUSSELS, Oct 11: European Union trade chief Pascal Lamy has a vital message for a meeting of World Trade Organization members in Singapore this weekend: start new tariff-slashing negotiations now to stop a slide into global recession.

“Launching a new global trade round is basically good news for the world economy, and the world economy today needs good news,” Lamy told Dawn before leaving for Singapore to attend the meeting of 18 leading WTO players, including Pakistan.

The weekend encounter, the second time that WTO members have convened for an informal ‘mini-ministerial’ session in recent months, will strive to prepare the ground for the agency’s third ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, in mid-November.

Lamy, an avid campaigner for a new trade round ever since the failed WTO meeting in December 1999, insists that prospects for kick-starting new global trade-expanding negotiations in Doha are brighter than in past months, with many developing nations now convinced of the need for new talks.

“I can feel the momentum building up in Geneva and in world capitals,” said Lamy. “We have moved to the right side of the mountain.” For starters, WTO members had learned some key lessons after Seattle on the need to address the concerns of developing nations, the EU trade chief said. “We now have a process, which is much more transparent involving a large number of countries. There is much more active consultation among members and this is very important because everyone feels on board.”

Also, the negotiating “spirit” had now changed, with countries in a less confrontational mood, Lamy underlined. “People are asking each other how can I address your concern rather than adopting a mercantilist approach. We now have an inclusive process where people understand each other better.”

“I would like Singapore to continue this process so that we can address our differences in a positive way,” he added.

Increasingly dismal United Nations predictions of falling global output and “virtually no growth” in international trade in 2001 also appear to have convinced many developing nations of the need to take remedial action, say EU officials.

This is especially true in Asian nations where the UN has scaled back its 2001 growth projections from 4.1 per cent to 1.7 per cent. But economics is only part of the equation, insisted Lamy. In addition to easing world economic difficulties, launching new multilateral trade liberalization talks will stop the world from splitting up into antagonistic blocs, divided on religious grounds, the EU trade chief stressed.

The WTO is a forum for North-South discussions and a way of responding to terrorists “intention of creating a big divide in the world,” Lamy told. A decision to press ahead with the Doha meeting and kick-start new global trade expanding discussions is “probably the best political response we can give to terrorists,” said Lamy.

Hard work still lies ahead, however. WTO members have given a mixed and cautious reception to last month’s draft proposals for a negotiating agenda for Doha tabled by Hong Kong’s ambassador and chairman of the WTO general council Stuart Harbinson.

WTO members are unanimous in backing the start of new tariff-cutting talks in addition to negotiations already agreed on further liberalising trade in farm goods and services.

But parts of the proposals dealing with trade and environmental policy, anti-dumping, competition and investments continue to divide countries. “Not everyone is happy 100 per cent but Harbinson’s papers are a good contribution,” Lamy insisted, adding that the Hong Kong envoy had also hammered out a parallel paper addressing developing nations’ concerns that implementation of their 1994 Uruguay Round commitments should be a WTO priority.

“If you look at the agenda for Doha as it is today implementation features quite high,” Lamy said adding that this would give additional leverage to developing countries in any upcoming negotiations.

Whether or not the new talks are labelled a ‘development round’ as suggested by World Bank President James Wolfensohn and others, Lamy said it was clear that developing countries had acquired new clout and weight around the WTO table.

The EU was also determined to defend its own interests and would continue to demand WTO negotiations on environmental rules, the EU trade chief said.

“There has to be global understanding of the importance of this topic for the EU,” Lamy insisted, adding: “Everybody has its priority and matters of concern for negotiation. We have trade and environment, it is a political necessity for us.”

Negotiations on the subject were needed because “we need to be clearer about the relationship between trade liberalization and environmental protection. We need to reduce the margin of interpretation, the grey zone, which exists today and which dispute panel rulings have only partially filled,” Lamy said.

The EU was ready, however, to “address the concerns of others, which have a suspicion that this is a very clever trick to create new obstacles to trade. Let’s discuss this we need more security we are ready to offer more security,” Lamy said.