Services giants urge EU to press on with WTO talks

BRUSSELS, May 22 (Reuters) - A group representing European banks, telecoms operators and other service sector multinationals urged the European Union to push forward talks for a global trade deal in which they have struggled to feature.

The European Services Forum (ESF) welcomed this week's release of proposals in other areas of the talks that could pave the way for a long-awaited meeting of ministers to thrash out a breakthrough in the World Trade Organisation's Doha round.

"It is time for the negotiations to finally enter into a final stage," ESF Chairman Christoffer Taxell said on Thursday. "There is an urgent need for the negotiations to now take a much wider focus that must include services market access."

Services account for about 70 percent of the EU's economy and the ESF's members include a host of sector leaders such as Europe's biggest telecoms companies, its banking associations and consulting, accountancy and law firms.

They have watched with dismay as rows over how to lower barriers to trade in farm and industrial goods have slowed the Doha negotiations, hampering progress on opening big new markets in the EU and the United States.

Without a breakthrough in the next few weeks, the round is likely to be overtaken by U.S. presidential campaigning and the changeover at the White House, possibly pushing it back several more years, negotiators have said.

The ESF said it hoped that if, as expected, ministers meet at the WTO to thrash out a Doha deal soon, big developing nations such as Brazil, China and India would signal which services sectors they would open more to foreign competition.

"Without these forward-looking indications in the services sector, the trade discussions are missing a crucial element of the puzzle," the group said in a statement.

Europe's manufacturers have criticised the new negotiating texts released this week, saying they did not go far enough in terms of opening up developing economies. European farmers complained the proposals required too many concessions of them.

The discontent from those two sectors will add to the challenge faced by EU trade chief Peter Mandelson to overcome scepticism among several countries in the bloc that the Doha negotiations, now in their seventh year, are worth pursuing. (Reporting by William Schomberg)