Mark Vaile
FameRank: 4

"The Honourable"

/name = Mark Vaile

/honorific-suffix = "Order of Australia/AO"

/image = Mark Vaile (TM).jpg

/caption =

/office1 = 12th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia

/term_start1 = 6 July 2005

/term_end1 = 3 December 2007

/primeminister1 = John Howard

/predecessor1 = John Anderson (Australian politician)/John Anderson

/successor1 = Julia Gillard

/office2 = Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development (Australia)/Minister for Transport and Regional Development

/term_start2 = 25 September 1997

/term_end2 = 21 October 1998

/primeminister2 = John Howard

/predecessor2 = John Sharp (Australian politician)/John Sharp

/successor2 = John Anderson (Australian politician)/John Anderson

/term_start3 = 29 September 2006

/term_end3 = 3 December 2007

/primeminister3 = John Howard

/predecessor3 = Warren Truss

/successor3 = Anthony Albanese

/office4 = Minister for Agriculture (Australia)/Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

/term_start4 = 21 October 1998

/term_end4 = 19 July 1999

/primeminister4 = John Howard

More Mark Vaile on Wikipedia.

With only seven weeks left until the Hong Kong ministerial conference in December, we have just about run out of time, ... If Hong Kong fails there is little chance of completing negotiations in 2006, putting the future of multilateral trade reform at serious risk for the short term.

The EU are the ones putting the development round under threat, and developing countries will suffer most.

The failure of the EU to make a meaningful offer on agricultural market access is deeply disappointing. Those EU member states who talk up their contribution to development are now blocking the most significant steps the global community could take in years to create new opportunities for the world's poorest countries.

They need to understand they are threatening the future of global trade and cheating millions of the world's poor out of new hope, ... It's not enough for them to provide aid and debt relief when the benefits of liberalizing trade are so much greater.

Our expectations are that that (EU tariff cut) figure needs to be well above 54 percent. It's a positive move in the right direction but still not enough.

I'm not as optimistic as I was, but it's not all over. The parties are still talking.

I don't believe the meeting should be postponed, even if the EU does not put forward a better proposal, ... I believe that the EU and France would need to account for their actions before the parliament of world opinion.

France and other EU members have taken the EU to the brink of collapsing the round.

The negotiations are really now on the edge of a cliff and it will take a concerted effort to get the round back on track.