Creating the conditions for a stronger and lasting economic growth through a greater liberalization of trade: that’s how the European Commissioner for trade, Pascal Lamy, summed up the position of the EU on the fourth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) due to be held at Doha in Qatar from 9 to 13 November. The conference will be attended by 4,400 delegates representing 142 member countries of the Organization. On the meeting’s agenda: the widening of the negotiations on agriculture, services, industrial tariffs, intellectual property rights, electronic trade, competition and markets. The Doha conference will also be called to pronounce on measures against the importation of products below cost, provisions on environmental protection, health care, animal welfare, and labour norms. We must aim, declared EU Commissioner Lamy, “at further integrating the developing countries in the WTO system”. And in the aftermath of the experience of the failure of the negotiations in Seattle, in Lamy’s view, a “deadline will also have to be fixed for concluding the negotiations”.
