G8 summits rarely live up to their exalted billing, but on the sidelines of this weekend’s meeting in St Petersburg, the US, the EU and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and Mexico all gave their backing for reaching an ambitious and balanced framework Doha Round agreement within a month. The deadlock may finally be broken. Pascal Lamy now has a strong mandate to bang heads together and reach the outlines of a deal to free up world trade by mid-August,
I’m rushing to finish my monthly column for Prospect, so I don’t have time to write more now, but I’ll add more as soon as I can.
The leaders of China, India, Brazil and Mexico did not sign up to the G8 statement on trade – that was left to the ever inclusive G8.