The EU's trade chief, trying to get member countries behind him for global talks, said Europe could not hide from free trade, but he pledged to heed the concerns of farmers and business about a more competitive world.
Peter Mandelson said there was an urgent need for consensus over trade reform among the European Union's (EU) 25 members who only recently were split on how to cope with a surge in Chinese textile imports.
"Europe cannot hide away from what is happening to our world," he told business representatives in a speech on Monday. "Sheltering ourselves from change is not an option."
Rich countries would honour pledges on farm reform, which will be key to winning over poor countries and avoiding failure at World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong in December.
"But my (EU) member states will simply not accept further first moves from the EU which are pocketed without parallel moves by others," Mandelson said.
He also said he was concerned about a lack of progress in opening up the global services market, a demand of Europe's banking, telecoms and other service sector companies.
Mandelson is due to meet officials from the United States, Brazil and India in Paris this week for discussions on how to prevent the kind of deadlock at the WTO meeting in December that has marred previous top-level talks.
The EU and the United States are trying to find common ground to cut tariffs and subsidies in agriculture - as sought by poor countries - and both want more access to services markets in big developing countries like Brazil and India.
Last week, US President George W. Bush said the United States would eliminate all trade barriers if the world followed suit, a pledge that Mandelson at the time described as grandiose given the virtual impossibility of such a deal.
Seeking to assure European business that he would be tough in the WTO talks, the EU trade chief said on Monday he would not hesitate to trigger sanctions against countries that violated intellectual property rights, such as in the music industry.
He also said the EU might shut out foreign firms from bidding for government public service contracts in the 25-nation bloc if the company's home country did not give European firms similiar access.
The EU has been seeking access to public procurement contracts for European companies in developing countries.
Mandelson's attempts to get the EU members behind his trade strategy got the backing of a leading business group on Monday.
Ernest-Antoine Selliere, president of the EU's biggest employers' group UNICE, urged European governments to give the commissioner a mandate to secure a deal in Hong Kong.
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