The European Union stepped up pressure on Wednesday for a global trade deal by the end of this week, warning that if World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks fail it could strike a blow to the international economy.
The caution, from EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, echoed views voiced earlier this week by US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick who also told developing countries Washington would not go for a deal that fell short of what it wanted.
"If we don't achieve an agreement that would send out a negative signal to the world economy, something that we can do without," Lamy told the European Parliament in a videolink from Geneva where he is taking part in the talks.
On Monday Zoellick, also now in Geneva, said the United States "will not accept a deal ... simply for the sake of a deal". Any accord must provide "substantial new openings for trade in agriculture, goods and services," he added.
Mediators in the WTO's stalled Doha Round - aimed at eventually concluding a new global trade treaty - had been hoping to make a fresh bid for a breakthrough on Wednesday, but they said a new text might not be ready until early Thursday.
"We are still waiting for development in agriculture," a WTO spokesman quoted them as saying. "Realistically it is not going to be ready until very late tonight or early tomorrow."
Negotiators are struggling to get agreement on a framework for the next stage of the Doha Round, launched in 2001 but effectively derailed since the collapse of a WTO meeting of trade ministers in Mexico last September.
The central problem is farm trade reform, and the future of rich power subsidies. Deep differences persist on the issue between North and South, and between the United States and the 25-nation EU.
NEW BLUEPRINT: A first blueprint put forward by WTO chief Supachai Panitchpakdi and the head of its executive General Council, Japanese ambassador Shotaro Oshima, met fierce criticism.
But Supachai told reporters that if the new blueprint were delayed there would still be time for agreement by Friday.
The depth of the farm problem was stressed by Argentina's Secretary for International Relations Martin Redrado. "The current playing field is just not level," he told journalists.
The 147 WTO states have given themselves until the close of play on July 30 for a deal setting out guidelines for more detailed future negotiations on farm and industrial goods, services and a customs code.
Such a deal would let them say the Doha Round was back on track, but failure could postpone for years further progress on liberalising trade, with its promise of a multi-billion-dollar boost to the world economy, trade officials say.
Ministers from a core group of five members - Australia, Brazil, India, the European Union and the United States - who met late into the night on Tuesday, were back negotiating again on Wednesday in a bid for common ground.
The draft calls for an end to farm export subsidies, substantial cuts in other forms of aid by wealthy countries to their farmers, and greater market access for both developing and developed countries.
But poorer nations argue that it gives the big trade powers leeway to protect their high-cost farmers from imports, while helping them dump their subsidised produce abroad and destroy the livelihood of struggling farmers in the South.
"We are prepared to give more market access to farm products but not to subsidies," said Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, referring to demands from rich states for developing countries to open up their domestic markets.