In a veiled threat, commissioner Peter Mandelson (pictured) warned that developing countries should make concessions quickly or risk losing the gains made in the Doha round of negotiations to date.

“We need some movement quickly or we risk losing it all,” he said at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

The EU committed at December’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Hong Kong

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to eliminate export subsidies on farm products by 2013.

It now wants developing countries to reciprocate, with Mandelson warning that the EU “will not move” until this happened.

He said liberalising trade in industrial goods would do more for development than lowering barriers to farm trade.

“SA needs to push the G-20 (Group of 20 developing nations) to open their markets…” said Mandelson.

SA is a founding member of the G-20 alliance, whose objective it is to fight farm subsidies in rich markets. Other members include Brazil, China and India.

Mandelson challenged SA to set the example by making an offer on services soon, saying the EU was dismayed at SA’s failure to not do this earlier. He called for an “early post-Hong Kong services offer” by SA.

SA and other developing countries have said the EU’s offer to eliminate export subsidies by 2013 was virtually meaningless as this was already planned as part of the internal agricultural reform programme in that region.

Mandelson said the EU had made substantial offers, including an ambitious services offer.

He said the EU would not be the “sole banker” in the Doha round of negotiations.

The head of the South African delegation to the WTO, Faizel Ismail, has warned that the EU’s refusal to make further concessions in the current Doha talks “sets the stage for the complex post-Hong Kong Doha negotiations”.

He said that in his assessment of the Hong Kong meeting, the EU’s stance would make it impossible for WTO members to conclude the Doha Round by the end of this year.

Mandelson’s argument that the EU had done enough in agreeing to end agricultural export subsidies by 2013 was not true “as the current EU offer on market access will result in no further real market openings or acceleration of CAP (common agricultural policy)”.

CAP — which determines EU’s agricultural policy, including subsidies — has been undergoing reforms since 2003.

Ismail said that Mandelson’s argument that “advanced” developing countries such as SA, China and Brazil should make concessions in industrial goods and services before the EU made additional concessions was an attempt to raise the bar above the heads of developing countries.

“There is legitimate suspicion that Mandelson’s argument is an attempt to shift the blame for lack of movement in the Doha negotiations to the major developing countries,” he said.

Ismail said if rich countries got the concessions they wanted from developing countries on industrial goods and services, the “development content” of the Doha round would be turned on its head.