Preparations for next week’s Group of Eight meeting of leading industrial nations in Gleneagles, Scotland, are still plagued by transatlantic discord on key trade, aid and climate change issues, European Union (EU) officials warned on Thursday.
Differences between the EU and the United States are strongest on global warming, with Washington still strongly resisting European demands that G8 leaders issue an ambitious, action-oriented declaration on combating climate change.
But EU officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US was also still wary of making new trade and aid concessions aimed at speeding up development in Africa.
The G8 summit on July 6-8 will be attended by the leaders of four EU states: Germany, France, Britain and Italy. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso will also participate in the talks and EU officials are traditionally involved in the painstaking preparation of declarations to be issued by leaders.
Other G8 members include the United States, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia.
Efforts to bridge the transatlantic gap on climate change are still underway, with G8 experts — known as ”sherpas — set to meet in London over the weekend to try and resolve the differences.
An EU expert on climate change set Europeans had still not given up hope of a ”consensual declaration” being issued at the G8 meeting.
But he added: ”Clearly for the moment we are not on the same wave length … we do not even agree on scientific evidence of climate change.”
Europeans want the G8 declaration to acknowledge signs of climate change such as melting snows, rising sea levels and changing weather patterns.
They also want the meeting to issue a specific action plan to combat global warming and to try and engage emerging nations in the process through a discussion on fighting pollution and energy issues.
So far, however, the US has opposed such precise language in the final declaration, preferring to emphasise that climate change poses a long-term challenge to the global environment.
In addition to the rift over climate change, EU officials say Washington is also wary of any references committing G8 leaders to boosting development assistance to Africa.
While the recent debt write-off agreed for 18 African nations by G8 finance ministers is a good start, EU officials say they want the Gleneagles summit to promise an increase in official development aid to Africa.
But they said the US continued to oppose suggestions that the meeting should pledge an annual â,¬50-billion increase in aid to Africa.
European calls for increased international development spending follow a decision by EU governments earlier this month to give an additional â,¬20-billion a year in development aid to poor nations. African countries have been promised 50% of the funds.
”We want to convince our other partners to do the same,” said an EU official.
The US has poured cold water on British proposals that such an increase in aid funds be ensuring by borrowing money on international bond markets under an International Financing Facility (IFF).
Meanwhile, France and Germany have said the summit should agree to a tax on international airline travel to finance more aid for African countries.
EU officials said the summit would send a political signal highlighting leaders’ commitment to current World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks on liberalising trade and confirm plans to complete discussions by end-2006.
The EU is especially pleased that the statement on trade does not focus exclusively on agriculture, a sensitive point for the 25-nation bloc which spends 40% of its annual â,¬100-billion budget on subsidising farmers.
But officials said they would push the US to follow Europe’s lead and give poor countries’ exports complete free access to its markets.
Washington is also unenthusiastic about European calls for western nations to step up aid to African capacity-building and infrastructure projects aimed at continent’s exporters to sell more of their goods on global markets.-Sapa-DPA