G8 Leaders End Summit with Focus on Trade
July 17, 2006
Despite differences in other areas, the world's leading industrial powers presented a unified front on Monday in an attempt to move forward stalled global trade talks, which aim to reduce barriers to world trade.
Presidents and prime ministers from the Group of Eight industralized countries invited heads of state from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa to the table in St. Petersburg to breathe new life into the so-called Doha round of trade negotiations and spur movement from entrenched positions.
"I am convinced that now is the time for us to make a political decision, whatever it might be," Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva said after a early Monday meeting with US President George W. Bush, where he urged a redoubling of efforts to break the trade impasse. "We cannot leave it in the hands of our negotiators only."
The elusive agreement, which has been under discussion for five years, has repeatedly stalled on issues such as how much the US will cut its farm subsidies, how far the European Union will go in reducing its tariffs on farm imports and the readiness of developing countries to significantly reduce barriers to industrial and service products.
On Monday, trade representatives from the EU, the US, Brazil, India, Japan and Australia are heading to World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva to continue talks. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was also ready to head to Geneva on Monday night.
"We do not have the luxury of postponing this any longer," Mandelson said in Brussels.
On Sunday, G8 leaders agreed that they would ask WTO leader Pascal Lamy to broker a compromise within the next four weeks.
"We gave a mandate to our respective negotiators to come to an agreement on modalities within one month," said EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso.
If no breakthrough comes in the new few weeks, analysts say the entire round could be put on ice for several years. The US president's power to "fast track" trade deals without a vote in Congress expires at the middle of next year.
Energy divisions
On the issue of energy, G8 leaders were not able to come to agreement in several areas.
One major point of contention in the area of energy security has been Russia's refusal to ratify the Energy Charter Treaty, which governs energy investment and transit issues in Europe, Russia and other countries. While Russia agreed in principle to open and transparent energy markets, it did not agree to ratify the Charter.
Europeans have pressed hard at previous G8 meetings for Russia to ratify the treaty, but the energy security statement on Sunday was limited to a vague affirmation of the document's free-market principles.
Divisions over the use of nuclear energy, an increasingly important issue as the West seeks alternatives to oil and gas, and the Kyoto Protocol, which the US has refused to sign, were also clearly reflected in the G8 energy security statement Sunday.
"We recognize that G8 members pursue different ways to achieve energy security and the goals of climate protection," the statement's section on nuclear power begins, basically agreeing to disagree.
Democracy discussion
Leaders at the summit met on Sunday night for a dinner during which they had "a frank discussion" with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his country's democratic development, according to a diplomat there.
Critics of Putin in Russia and in the West often say his six years in power have been marked by a clampdown on the mass media, decreasing toleration for dissent and a centralization of power in the Kremlin. Some have gone so far as to say that Russia is not ready for a full place at the G8 table.
The diplomat told Reuters that at the dinner, Putin gave an account of developments inside Russia. In such situations, Putin has in the past said that democracy is developing in Russia according to the country's own culture, history and traditions.
Putin did take the opportunity to assure colleagues he would not change the Russian constitution to seek a third term in office as some had feared.