STRASBOURG, Oct 26: The European Parliament backed a new round of global trade liberalization talks on Thursday but said governments must respond to citizens’ concerns over the world trade system.

In a resolution approved on Thursday, the Parliament stressed its support for the launch of a new trade round at next month’s World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Qatar.

The European Union has long pushed for a comprehensive new round of trade talks, covering industrial tariffs, agriculture, investment and competition rules and environmental issues.

But some developing countries have resisted a new round.

WTO chief Mike Moore told Reuters in Geneva on Thursday he could not predict if a new round would be kicked off in Qatar.

The European Parliament said the proposed new trade round should have a broad agenda, in order to boost sustainable economic growth, strengthen, develop and reform the rules-based trade system and ensure a fair distribution of its benefits.

It noted, however, that there were anxieties among EU citizens over the fairness of the world trade system and the need for institutional reform and concern that the WTO’s growing role should not restrict public policies on healthcare and education.

The resolution said the Qatar WTO meeting must respond to citizens’ concerns and the over-riding priority must therefore be to agree a negotiating agenda which adequately addresses the issues of inclusiveness, democracy and development.

Failure to address these issues would be hard for EU citizens, and the European Parliament, to support, it warned.

Condemning international terrorism, the Parliament said WTO members should convene as planned to give a strong and clear message to the global economy that multilateral cooperation on freer and fairer trade will continue.

Last month’s attacks on US cities and retaliatory US strikes on Afghanistan led to speculation, now quashed, that the Qatar meeting would have to be moved to another location.

The European Parliament said the immediate priority must be the needs of developing nations within the international trading system.

It called for a substantial reduction, by all industrialised countries, of barriers to agricultural exports from developing countries.

In a separate resolution adopted on Thursday, the European Parliament called for a major overhaul in the WTO’s working methods.

It called for the creation of a parliamentary assembly within the WTO with consultative powers and said the public should be allowed access to the WTO’s dispute settlement procedures.—Reuters