Commissioner for trade, European Commission, Pascal Lamy, has clarified that European Union's stand should not be interpreted as being "protectionist"in nature.

Speaking at a CII meeting here on Monday, Lamy sought to dispel the impression among developing countries that if they did not link trade with labour standards, the EU would impose sanctions on them.

Our position "is different from that taken by the US. We believe that there should be some sort of review to discuss the labour issue in developing countries". Lamy further said: We do not want to make the labour issue a universal one but a dialogue issue so as not to raise the suspicion in developing countries that this is a sort of a new protectionist agenda of the West".

He believed that more free trade would help raise the living and labour standards and that that point must be forcefully made to head away from protectionism. He said the recently-concluded negotiations on the bio-safety protocol showed that there was a large degree of convergence between the EU and India on environmental issues and that "we can work together constructively". He said he did not agree with those who believed that environment had nothing to do with trade.

Stating that the Seattle conference was a failure and a profound disappointment for the EU, Lamy advocated introduction of a "short-term" package to improve the climate to try to relaunch the round. The package was essentially designed to restore basic confidence in the WTO system. In his view, the comprehensive round should include four basic components-market access, updating of rules by WTO, development and civil society. And the EU would actively strive to make the case for a comprehensive round and prepare the ground for launching the negotiations.

"We do not accept the conventional wisdom that nothing can be done until after the next US elections. Certainly, the US does not accept this argument and we cannot assume that the climate for launching a round will be better next year than this", Lamy said.

Speaking at another seminar on `India-Europe relations in the age of globalisation' organised by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade Lamy said the Seattle round of WTO had been a failure in terms of addressing some of the major issues concerning trade between the developed and the developing nations and that there had been an agreement to restart the talks in the next round starting shortly. He said he was convinced that although there had been some progress in India-EU trade relations, he was convinced that the protential between the two was far from being realised in the near future.

The EU would establish the EU-India think-tank network that would sensitise the policy makers on both sides to the viewpoints of other. The think-tank network would consist of eminent persons from various fields inclusding those from political circle, economic, and cultural areas, said Lamy.