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WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Reuters): European Union member states could derail world trade talks aimed at boosting income in developing countries unless they agree to deep agricultural tariff cuts, a top US trade official said yesterday.
"The EU member states face a critical decision here for the global trading system. Are they going to make the kind of contribution that (the United States has) already made in our (farm trade) proposal and keep us on track for a strong outcome, or are they not," Deputy US Trade Representative Peter Allgeier told newsmen.
European Union ministers are gathering for an emergency meeting in Luxembourg Tuesday to discuss the farm trade negotiations, which are at the centre of efforts to reach a new world trade deal by the end of 2006.
France, the staunchest defender of the EU's generous farm subsidies and high tariffs, called the high-level meeting to express its concern that EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson had already gone too far in the talks.
The United States hopes Mandelson and EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel can override French concerns and persuade member states to give them the flexibility to offer deep cuts in the EU farm tariffs, which average 31 per cent compared to 12 per cent in the United States.
President George W Bush is expected to deliver the same message to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at a White House meeting Tuesday, a second US official said.
Negotiators hope to agree on a basic formula for cutting domestic farm subsidies and tariffs and eliminating export subsidies by a December meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Hong Kong. The impasse on agriculture has blocked progress in other parts of the negotiations aimed at expanding trade in manufactured goods and services, such as banking.
The United States offered last week to cut its main "trade-distorting" farm subsidies by 60 per cent over five years if the EU and Japan make bigger cuts and all countries except the very poorest make deep cuts in farm tariffs.
Washington, which will spend about $20 to $23 billion this year on various farm programmes, argues Brussels and Tokyo should have to make larger cuts because they spend more.
The EU attitude not only denies developing countries the market access they need to grow their economies, but endangers the negotiations by discouraging other WTO members from offering substantial tariff cuts, Allgeier said.
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