EU blames China for WTO environmental trade talks collapse

GENEVA, ( Reuters) - Europe’s trade negotiator blamed China yesterday for scuppering a global environmental trade deal by submitting impossible late demands at World Trade Organization talks aimed at scrapping import tariffs on exports worth more than $1 trillion.

“China came in with their list, bringing in totally new elements of perspective, which was very late in the process,” European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told Reuters.

The change of U.S. president also puts a big question mark over the future prospects for a deal.

European resistance to Chinese bicycle imports has also been a stumbling block, although Malmstrom said bicycles had become totemic for China and nobody else, and the agreement went far wider, adding that the EU had “quite cheap bicycles already”.

Malmstrom was co-chair of the talks, which aimed to cut costs for environmentally beneficial goods by removing trade tariffs applied to them, with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who declined to comment as he left.