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European Union must defend farm policy in trade row: France
EU has ten days to convince partners as global trade talks founder
10/24/2005
GENEVA, Oct 23 (AFP): Trade officials have warned that global trade talks are close to breaking point, leaving the European Union with ten days to either resolve a bitter internal rift or convince partners in the WTO to tame their demands on farm import barriers.
The 25-nation EU was at the heart of a battle over further cuts in tariffs on farm produce during a week of intense talks at the World Trade Organisation ahead of the trade body's ministerial conference in Hong Kong.
Crawford Falconer, the New Zealand Ambassador leading the agricultural negotiations, warned Friday that he only had another ten days to put together a draft agreement that would be ready in time for the conference on December 12.
After France convened an EU meeting earlier in the week to rein in the bloc's top negotiator, Peter Mandelson, the former British minister found himself in a tricky position when he later met four other WTO heavyweights-Australia, Brazil, India and the United States.
The group of "Five Interested Parties" represents a cross- section of interests at the WTO, and any compromise it beats out stands a better chance of being accepted by the full 148 strong membership of the trade body.
Decisions in the WTO are taken by consensus, so any package needs unanimous support.
The European trade commissioner is under pressure in the five to improve on his offer of a 20 to 50 per cent cut in duties on agricultural imports.
The biggest demand so far comes from the United States, which wants the EU to cut tariffs by 55 to 90 per cent.
Mandelson also faces internal pressure, especially from France, one of the EU's top farm producers and a prime beneficiary of the bloc's Common Agricultural Policy, not to go to far.
The spat has driven the WTO's Doha round to deadlock once more, despite a brief flurry of hope when major trading powers suddenly started putting improved offers on the negotiating table earlier this month.
West African nations also heralded the failure of the Hong Kong gathering unless rich countries-notably the United States -- halted financial support to cotton growers. They argue that such support harms the interests of farmers in poor countries, and is precisely the kind of barrier that the Doha round was meant to overcome.
Reuters from Paris says: The European Union must not offer concessions at world trade talks that go beyond a 2003 reform of its common agriculture policy (CAP), France said yesterday, pressing the EU not to give ground in the negotiations.
The 2003 reform of the CAP, which sets out the EU's trade- distorting farm subsidies, was already substantial, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.
World Trade Organisation chief Pascal Lamy urged the EU and the United States Friday to make concessions on agriculture to achieve a breakthrough at the global trade talks.
On Thursday, some of the world's biggest trading nations piled pressure on the EU to offer more farm concessions, saying a four-year push to free up world trade was at risk of collapse without them.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, who has been negotiating for the bloc, has said he is ready to move on agriculture but that the trade talks had to include other areas, such as progress on industrial goods and services.
But he faces strong resistance from France, the staunchest defender of the EU's generous subsidies to farmers and its high tariffs on imports of farm produce from outside the bloc.
France has criticised Mandelson's tactics and accused him of overstepping the negotiating mandate he has been given by member states. Paris says he has offered too much on agricultural issues such as market access.
Asked if the negotiating tactics of Mandelson, a former member of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, were part of a clash between London and Paris over how the EU should work, Douste-Blazy said: "Mr Mandelson is the commissioner for all the (EU) member states and should conduct himself as such."
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