'Poor nations would stage 'walkout' at WTO talks'

Most poorer nations would walk out of next week's World Trade Organisation talks if they do not accept the offer tabled, a major British development charity said on Saturday, accusing the European Union of promoting "a charter of self-interest".
Christian Aid said its staff at WTO headquarters in Geneva asked a number of questions to more than 30 of the 41 African countries involved in next week's closely watched Hong Kong meeting.
Of the 20 who replied, 18 said it was not fair to characterise the talks as a "development round", while 11 said they would withdraw if richer countries refused to give up farm subsidies and drop tariffs.
Fourteen nations said they felt what the EU and United States were offering would not benefit their economy; nine said they felt their delegation had been put under "undue pressure" by Brussels and Washington.
The responses threatened a repeat of the 2003 WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico, when delegations from poor countries walked out in opposition to a lack of cuts to agricultural subsidies and tariffs, Christian Aid said.
As the clock to the deadlocked Doha round ticks down, the EU - which has refused to cut farm subsidies - needs "every opportunity to match its rhetoric" and make an offer that was good for development, it added.
But Claire Melamed, Christian Aid's head of trade policy, warned: "The chances of that happening are very small."
The charity said it had obtained five EU documents showing the 25-nation bloc was "cajoling" developing nations into privatising sensitive services such as water, health care and banking.
The move - in which European businesses would seek a potentially lucrative toehold in financial and public utilities markets - countered their claims the talks were essentially about "pro-poor" trade policies, they added.
"What the EU is offering is a charter of self-interest that puts the greed of the rich above the needs of the poor," Melamed said.
Claire Akamanzi, the Rwandan delegate to the Hong Kong talks, accused the European Union of "aggressively pursuing" its own agenda on services which were unsuitable for the continent.
Christian Aid has published a pre-WTO summit report - "Serving the Rich: How the EU Will Wreck the WTO talks" - arguing the bloc's aggressive free-trade agenda could cause "untold damage" to millions in poor countries.
Five of the leaked EU documents show the bloc has tabled 106 revised "requests" with other WTO members, indicating which services they want to see opened up. Many were sectors in which the state has traditionally played a role either at no charge or at reduced fees for the poor.