(GENEVA) - The European Union's dapper trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, juggled the tough duties of pushing for a global trade agreement this week while fielding fierce pressure from EU members with studied nonchalance.

The 54-year-old former British government minister represented the 27-nation bloc at the marathon World Trade Organization talks, knowing that any trade deal would still require approval from the EU's own demanding members.

In the end, the talks broke down without agreement on Tuesday for reasons outside Mandelson's remit: unresolved differences between the United States and India over import tariff measures that affect poor farmers.

Mandelson had been looking to end his five-year mandate, which runs out in 2009, on a high by helping pull off a world trade deal.

Emerging at tense moments, he had breezed past reporters with a playful grin and a wave, despite the controversial task facing him and pressure from farming interests sharply opposed to the free trade preferences of Britain and Nordic countries.

"The show is on the road and it goes on," he said early on Tuesday, even as talks dragged on into a ninth day and then halted for the night in deadlock after a tense overnight session.

France -- holder of the bloc's rotating presidency -- kept close tabs on the talks, sending French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier to attend. But Mandelson shrugged off the prospect of Paris breathing down his neck.

"He can bring the picnic, we'll need it to sustain us, it's going to be a long negotiation," he joked.

Ahead of the talks, Mandelson locked horns with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he accused of undermining him as the bloc's trade negotiator. Sarkozy later threatened to block the WTO trade accord as it stood.

Mandelson again shrugged off the pressure. "I have no reaction, except to say that the (European) Commission is charged with negotiating here at the WTO on behalf of all the member states," he said.

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