The Doha round of talks has been going on for 10 years but has stalled on negotiations over industrial goods. The head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has said the differences remain unbridgeable.
"In the coming weeks, or the coming months, we are going to come to a moment of crisis," European trade commissioner Karel De Gucht told a seminar in the Swedish capital.
He said he hoped the prospect of the talks collapsing would prompt countries to make an effort to find an agreement.
"Maybe such a crisis is necessary to make everybody realise that we are on the brink of losing a very important project," he told Reuters. "I am talking about hopefully a positive effect if such a crisis were to arise.
"If you do not make progress, if you do not really engage in negotiations then sooner or later you are going to face a moment of truth," he said.
Backers of world trade liberalisation say it promotes economic growth, creates jobs and decreases poverty. Some aid groups dispute this and say the trade rules mainly benefit developed nations.
De Gucht said one of the problems was that poorer nations did not always want to trade with each other.
He also said the stronger developing nations, such as China and India, had to accept that they were now in a better position economically than when the Doha talks started and should accept less of the development advantages originally intended. (Reuters)
