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Thread: Do you think Doha talks will be successful this time?

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[quote=GUEST7273,311398]Here is an article from FT which talked about Doha Rounds. Really worth reading! Perhaps, it has explained why Doha talks couldn't be successful.

THE BLINDFOLDS THAT WRECKED A DEAL TO BOOST GLOBAL TRADE

By Philip Stephens 
Friday, August 08, 2008

The
Doha trade round has stalled. Again. In so far as anyone pays much attention, they will probably struggle to stifle a yawn. That is a pity. The deadlock will not see the international trading system crashing down about us. Yet the failure is more than a missed opportunity. It underscores a dangerous inability among rich and rising nations alike to recognise their individual in their mutual interest.

Some, of course, are celebrating. Nicolas Sarkozy casts himself as the French president who will make his country's peace with the 21st century. The embrace of modernity, though, must not extend to anything that upsets a hugely costly agricultural policy designed for the 1950s.

Mr Sarkozy's choice of words gives the game away. A truly confident leader would talk about meeting the challenges of globalisation: about equipping France, and indeed Europe, to draw further prosperity from an integrated world economy.

Instead the French president's language betrays temerity. In spite of all its manifest strengths – economic, technological, cultural, political – France, it seems, cannot stand on its own feet. Europe's leaders must “protect” the continent from the ravages of globalisation.

So indignant was Mr Sarkozy with the efforts of the supposedly neoliberal Peter Mandelson to forge a deal that at one point he demanded that the European Commission's trade negotiator leave Geneva for a public dressing down at the Elysée. Sensibly, Mr Mandelson declined.

Perhaps, though, I am being unfair in singling out Mr Sarkozy. For all the efforts of the indefatigable Pascal Lamy (a free-trade Frenchman) as head of the World Trade Organisation, and Mr Mandelson's decision to negotiate at the limits of the EU mandate, the truth is that most of the big players in Geneva were happy to see the process collapse.
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