Mandelson slams drafts for key WTO meeting

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said on Thursday that almost all the draft negotiating texts produced this week ahead of a World Trade Organisation meeting next month were unsatisfactory.
"Almost all of the texts are unsatisfactory and the one on services is particularly disappointing," Mandelson said. "We need targets in the area of services, as in agriculture and non-agricultural market access, or we will get nowhere," he said in a statement.
The EU has come under fire from some of the world's other trading powers for refusing to make deep enough cuts to its farm import tariffs. But Brussels says it has gone as far as it can and other countries must now make concessions in areas such as industrial goods and services.