Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile on Thursday singled out the European Union (EU) for criticism over stalled negotiations on a global free trade deal.

Vaile, who will host meeting of major world trading powers next month in a bid to salvage the talks, said the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations were "hanging by a thread" because of a deadlock on agricultural subsidies.

"Why are the negotiations stuck? The simple but familiar answer is that rich WTO Members do not want to substantially open their agricultural markets," Vaile said after a meeting with his Malaysian counterpart Rafidah Aziz

"The European Union's offer to cut agricultural tariffs by 51 percent might sound reasonable, but its tariffs are so high that it would make very little difference. Carve-outs for sensitive products would have weakened the result further.

"The bottom line is that we will only reach a consensus when we have an outcome that delivers substantial new trade opportunities."

Vaile has extended a meeting of the 18-member Cairns Group next month to include senior US trade officials and WTO chief Pascal Lamy so it can attempt to revive the so-called Doha round of negotiation. He has also invited EU Trade Commission Peter Mandelson.

Doha Round

"We are hoping that the meetings in Cairns will oil the wheels of our efforts to resume the Doha negotiations as soon as possible," he said.

"Australia will also be looking to use other opportunities to discuss the Doha Round, including the annual APEC meetings to be held in Vietnam later this year."

Rafidah blamed intransigent countries, who she refused to name, for the breakdown in talks last week.

"Individual countries have failed to be proactive in showing flexibility to the degree that they should ... much to the disappointment to the rest of the world," she said. "Some countries are so unreasonable.

"If they're really serious about the Doha round, and they really mean what they say about having a predictable regime that benefits everybody - the so-called win-win situation - then they had better come on board and agree to modalities to which the majority of us already agree."