World trade talks that began seven years ago with bold promises to open up markets and help poor countries are in danger of collapse this week - and nothing illustrates why more effectively than the banana.

On the eve of the summit which begins in Geneva tomorrow, negotiators have failed to reach agreement over imports of the fruit into Europe. Latin American countries want a better deal for their exporters, while African and Caribbean producers are vowing to oppose them.

The banana dispute is one part of a giant jigsaw of about 30 outstanding issues that make the Doha Round of talks - named after the capital of Qatar where they began in 2001 - so fiendishly complex. As negotiators from 152 countries gather for a make-or-break week, they know that failure risks plunging the world into a bout of protectionism that could mark the end of attempts to find a “Big Bang” agreement in response to globalisation. This would leave future deals to be struck piecemeal and could also lock developing countries into poverty for decades.

Impoverished Latin American nations such as Costa Rica and Honduras are desperate for lower EU tariffs so that they can sell their bananas. However, poor Caribbean states such as Jamaica and St Lucia could see their economies suffer to the point of ruin from the resulting loss of exports.

A compromise suggested by Pascal Lamy, the director of the World Trade Organisation, was accepted by the EU reluctantly but is being quietly resisted by France, Portugal and Spain because it would hurt their former colonies. The Latin American bloc is unsatisfied and is pushing for bigger changes.

Peter Mandelson, the former Cabinet minister who negotiates on behalf of the EU, has said that failure in the trade talks would be “a counsel of despair” for the world. “It is saying that the world is so complicated we can no longer bring everyone together in a multilateral framework,” he said.

“If, after seven years, you cannot complete a trade round, what does that say for your prospects of reaching a deal on climate change?”

Mr Mandelson is already under immense pressure from President Sarkozy of France, whose country holds the temporary presidency of the EU, not to give away any more concessions in Geneva that would put European farm jobs at risk. In a bitter dispute, Mr Sarkozy has blamed Mr Mandelson for the “no” vote in the Irish referendum on the EU’s Lisbon treaty after he allegedly upset Ireland’s farmers by offering too many cuts in European tariffs and subsidies.

Even before the new talks, they were mired in bad feeling. Celso Amorim, the Foreign Minister of Brazil, accused the EU and US of behaving like Joseph Goebbels for suggesting that they were making the bulk of the concessions. “Goebbels used to say if you repeat a lie several times it becomes a truth,” Mr Amorim said. He attacked the way in which rich nations also wanted better access to poor countries’ service markets such as telecoms, electricity and water distribution.

Mr Amorim’s remark brought immediate condemnation from Susan Schwab, the US trade representative, who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. “This kind of statement is highly unfortunate,” her spokesman said.

The bickering will continue today with the publication of an article by Michael Glos, the German Economics Minister, urging rapidly growing economies to stop masquerading as developing countries. “To my mind, it is indispensable that the major emerging [markets] assume their responsibilities in the global trade system,” Mr Glos wrote.

Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, said yesterday that it was “now or never” for the Doha Round. “Developing and developed economies stand to gain from lower barriers to goods and agriculture,” he said.

There is one ray of hope, albeit a stuffy and uncomfortable one. The Geneva talks are expected to last all week and will take place in a room which participants believe has been made deliberately inhospitable to try to encourage them to reach an agreement. The Green Room has no air conditioning, but participants often argue about opening the windows because that lets in swarms of flies drawn by the lights burning into the night.

Mr Lamy, the host of the talks, is expected to convene meetings later and later each day to force negotiators to make compromises if they want to escape and get some sleep.

One official close to the talks said. “It is a horrible room - but when it was extremely hot in Geneva in 2006 it got the talks back on track.”

Around the table

- 152 countries are involved, in various overlapping alliances including:

- G90 Group of African, Caribbean, Pacific and Least Developed Countries, supposedly the main beneficiaries of the talks (eg Kenya, Zimbabwe)

- G33 Group of developing countries - now with 46 members - seeking exemptions from tariff cuts in specific sectors (eg China, Cuba, Pakistan)

- G20 actually has 22 members seeking big cuts in developed world farm tariffs (eg Egypt, India, Paraguay)

- G10 actually has 9 members. High-tariff countries seeking to protect their rural communities through import duties (eg Japan, Iceland, Norway)

- 55 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries which had special trade agreements as former European colonies and are fighting to avoid a loss of that status

- 4 countries in the Cotton Four seeking deep cuts in US cotton subsidies (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali)

Source: Times database

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