"There's no 'Plan B' if the Doha round of trade talks fail. The consequences would be disastrous," warned Eurpopean Union external trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.

He was speaking at the concluding session of the fourth Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi on Saturday on the imperatives facing India's emergence as the next economic superpower.

Both Mandelson and Mel Bergstein, chairman of global strategic consultancy major Diamond Management and Technology Consultants, agreed that it was a question of "when" and not if India would achieve superpower status.

The speakers said India's unique advantages of "a vast, populated market, its pool of young, skilled workers and above all its pluralistic and democratic civil society" placed India in a position to provide a new perspective to the debate on global imperatives.

Mandelson said the EU was committed to move closer to the G20 (a group of emerging economies at the WTO of which India and Brazil are key members) on farm subsidies and tariffs on agricultural products. "Aiming below the G20 target is simply not enough but bidding for more is not possible," he said.

The longer the World Trade Organisation's current round of talks on a global agreement remained stalled, the greater the chances of a deadlock, Mandelson stressed, adding that the "engine of growth" in emerging economies could be set back by decades.

Mandelson admitted that an agreement of any sort was not possible without an 'engaged US partner' and urged the US to cut its subsidies to US farmers by a few billion dollars, which, he felt, was digestible. He pointed out that the "essence" of leadership lay in balancing "singlemindedness and compromise".

Bergstein pointed out that the US could no longer afford to continue as the world's sole superpower. Apart from the expense of maintaining its military might, which costs every US citizen over $2,000 per year, he pointed out that US domestic consumption alone cannot continue to drive global growth.

Mandelson said India's greatest contribution to the emerging multi-polar world was its "value-based approach."