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| Sunday, 30 October 2005 |
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EU offers big farm tariff cut in world trade talks (AFP) The European Commission offered on Friday its steepest-ever cuts in agricultural tariffs to try to break a deadlock in world trade talks, but France and the United States voiced immediate reservations. The EU's executive said it would be prepared to cut the bloc's highest farm tariffs by 60 percent and the lower tariffs by 35-60 percent, almost halving the overall tariff rate from around 23 percent to 12 percent. "It is a substantial, credible and comprehensive offer," trade commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters in Brussels. "The cuts are deep and real. This will drive down our tariffs across the board." But he warned: "This is Europe's bottom line." The offer was conditional on its main negotiating partners - the United States, Brazil, India and Australia - responding constructively, notably on industrial goods, services and development, the commission said. The parties are struggling to reach a deal on the all-important agriculture dossier in the Doha round of trade liberalisation talks in time for a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Hong Kong from December 13-18. WTO officials have warned the talks are close to breaking point and that the EU must quickly resolve a bitter internal rift over farm subsidies and import tariffs or convince its trading partners to reduce their own demands. On Thursday, French President Jacques Chirac drew the line. "We have a clear and simple position which is the full respect of the Common Agriculture Policy as it was modified in 2003," he said. "It's out of the question for us to make a further step. That's our red line." France regards agriculture as a matter of vital national interest and such remarks implicitly threaten use of its veto in the EU if it does not like the proposals. Such a move could scupper a hoped-for framework agreement on multilateral trade liberalization in Hong Kong. Mandelson said he believed France had already raised objections during talks between representatives from the bloc's 25 member states earlier on Friday. "There was a suggestion by France, I gather, that the proposals that we're making are outside the commission's negotiating mandate," he said. "It's a matter for France obviously to make that claim and to sustain it." Anticipating the conflict, the commission also noted that the offer was at the upper limit of its mandate but remained within it. "We remain doubtful that the offer is compatible with the mandate," a French diplomat said, but added that the offer "is worth studying carefully." Mandelson said he hoped there would be no clash with France. "I dont want to get into any fight with any member states, certainly not France," he told AFP later on Friday. "The commission has the responsibility to negotiate in the interest of Europe, using its best judgment." In Washington, the chief spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative office, Christin Baker, said: "From our early analysis, we are disappointed with the new EU proposal." The WTO made no comment, saying only: "We await further developments." At the press conference, Mandelson urged the EU's partners to respond in kind before December. "It is imperative that we get the negotiations on trade and industrial goods restarted. The outcome of the Doha round must be balanced," he said. "The US must act on its trade distorting food aid and export credits, and Australia, Canada and New Zealand, must discipline their state trading enterprises to match Europe's elimination of export subsidies." "There are now 45 days until the Hong Kong ministerial. We cannot waste a single one of them," he said. He affirmed the EU was not caving into demands that it improve its offer. "We will not simply meet the demands of those who have the loudest
voices, nor will we take risks neither with our own partners' livelihoods,
or those in the developing world," he said. |
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