New EU Trade Chief Sees Doha Opportunity In Crisis

Ashton was talking after meeting senior negotiators in the long-running Doha round at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The financial crisis provides an opportunity to revive the Doha talks for a new deal in global commerce, as open trade is part of the economic solution, the European Union's new trade chief said on Thursday.

"There is an opportunity to look again, and see whether we can look at those issues in the light of the circumstances we find ourselves in and see if we can find further progress," Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton told Reuters.

Ashton was talking after meeting senior negotiators in the long-running Doha round at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

She arrived in Geneva on Wednesday to meet WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy only hours after the European Parliament confirmed her in the powerful post by a large majority.

A meeting of ministers in July to seek a breakthrough in the Doha talks, launched in Qatar nearly seven years ago to open up world trade, collapsed over differences between the United States and India over measures to protect poor-country farmers.

At the time Ashton's predecessor, Peter Mandelson, said there was no realistic chance of agreeing the core issues in the talks in the foreseeable future.

Ashton said circumstances have changed since then.

"We have to look at what's changed, and what we've got is a different economic climate and, I think, the need for nations to consider how open trade is part of the solution to the economic downturn," she said.

Ashton, previously leader of Britain's upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, said much progress had been made in the July meeting, and the talks were stalled not finished.

Lamy and other senior trade figures say it will not be possible to conclude the entire Doha agenda this year, but an outline deal on core issues is still possible in 2008.