Archive

          BRUSSELS, Oct 28 (Reuters): The European Union (EU) today will try to keep alive global trade talks by making a new offer on the sensitive issue of farming, with the threat of a French veto heavy in the air.
The EU's trade and agriculture commissioners are due to hold a teleconference in the afternoon with counterparts from the United States, Australia, Brazil and India who are demanding big import tariffs cuts to open up Europe's protected farm markets.
Before that, the commissioners will explain to EU ambassadors in Brussels how much further they intend to go in offering to cut tariffs in order to save a World Trade Organisation (WTO) round.
French President Jacques Chirac -- a staunch defender of Europe's farm subsidies and tariffs -- said on Thursday that France would block the deal if Brussels made concessions beyond a 2003 reform of Europe's agricultural budget.
A spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the new offer would be within the EU's mandate.
The United States and other countries have also turned up the heat on Brussels.
But the lack of progress so far on farm reform means an accord, originally planned to give the world economy a boost and help poor nations, could flop after four years of talks.
The United States this month shifted the spotlight onto Europe by announcing a long-awaited reduction in the most trade-distorting type of U.S. farm subsidies and proposing sharp import tariff cuts.
Although the EU said Washington's offer lacked detail, it immediately came under pressure to be much bolder in cutting its own import tariffs that have protected Europe's farmers from cheaper competition for decades.
The United States, Australia and Brazil insist the EU must more than double its average agricultural tariff cut to 54 per cent and sharply reduce the number of "sensitive" products that are protected from big tariff cuts.
Trade commissioner Mandelson concedes an EU move on market access is the key to unlocking other areas of the WTO round like industrial goods and services. But he has warned that "hopelessly over- inflated bids" could undermine the talks.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday said Europe's trading partners would have to match the new offer in terms of agriculture concessions and also in other goods and services, key areas of interest for European firms.
Meanwhile, another report from Geneva adds: The WTO has struck down a proposed EU tariff on bananas, saying it is too high to allow fair competition from Latin American exporters.
AP adds from Hampton Court: EU leaders have moved no closer to resolving their divisions over a new budget, nor how to appease renewed French threats of vetoing world trade talks amid calls that Europe needs to accept urgent reforms to keep up with rising economic powers -- China and India.
A vague agreement to work for economic renewal pushed by summit host British Prime Minister Tony Blair did little to clear up a sense of paralysis and drift in the 25-nation bloc.
Blair's one-day informal talks Thursday were focused on pushing his counterparts to accept that more change was needed in wake of the effects of globalisation and also to show Europeans that the EU was a benefit to their every-day lives.
"People want to push Europe forward again," Blair said at the end of the talks.
AFP adds: The European Commission (EC) was set Friday to make a fresh offer on agriculture in world trade talks, although France, opposed to new concessions, has threatened to reject any WTO deal not to its liking.
With the EU's executive body and France on collision course, the internal EU dispute cast a pall over sensitive trade negotiations at a critical phase less than two months ahead of a crunch ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.
Speaking after an informal EU summit Thursday, commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said that "the commission will announce to you tomorrow (Friday) a new offer to relaunch the whole Doha development round."
"Time is running out," he said.
The EU's trading partners have dismissed the commission's offers to date as insufficient, while France is already livid about the concessions made so far.
Negotiators are working against a mid-December deadline to agree on the broad outlines of a global trade accord in time for the WTO Hong Kong meeting.
Reuters adds from Washington: An eagerly awaited EU farm trade proposal must offer "substantial new market access" for world trade talks to succeed, a top U.S. official said yesterday.
"Clearly that is important to the U.S. and its farmers and ranchers. But it is even more important to the developing world," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Peter Allgeier said in testimony before a Senate Finance subcommittee.