WASHINGTON In a move aimed at jump-starting efforts to launch a new round of world trade talks, Canada has urged the United States and the European Union to compromise on their proposed agendas for the negotiations, a top Canadian trade official said on Monday.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Canadian International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said he urged the United States to support a larger agenda than it had proposed so far.

Pettigrew said he had also urged the EU to accept a narrower agenda than it pursued 15 months ago, when the last World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Seattle ended in failure.

The disagreement between the United States and the EU over which trade areas should be included in a new round of world trade talks was one reason the Seattle meeting failed.

The United States opposed the EU's proposal for talks on competition and investment policies, saying expanding the talks to those areas would make it too difficult for countries to reach an overall agreement within the goal of three years.

With another ministerial meeting set for November in Qatar, WTO Director General Mike Moore has also urged member countries to identify remaining problem areas by the end of July.

Meanwhile, European Union governments have agreed to let EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy talk to other countries about launching a new round of global trade talks on the basis of revised proposals, EU officials said on Monday.

Lamy hopes the proposals, which tone down some of the more controversial areas of the EU's negotiating wish list, will help break the logjam over trade talks that has dragged on since the 1999 WTO conference in Seattle.

Lamy said EU trade ministers meeting privately on Sunday evening gave him the "the necessary negotiating authority" to move forward on the basis of new proposals he put forward late last year.

"I have the necessary authority i was looking for," Lamy told a news conference.

(Reuter)