Geneva, 19/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The fourth round of international negotiations for a World Health Organisation (WHO) international anti-smoking convention started in Geneva on Monday and will last until Saturday. Aim: to progress towards adopting convention in 2003. WHO and anti-smoking NGO officials signal that that negotiations are progressing well, most countries favouring an effective convention covering advertising, agricultural subsidies, converting farms, education, sport, culture, banning smoking in public areas, fighting contraband, etc, but countries like the US, Germany and Japan are reluctant to accept measures to reduce tobacco product advertising, marketing and trade. The European Commission negotiator Matti Rajala said Germany was under strong pressure from its EU partners to agree to a complete ban on tobacco advertising, telling reporters that it was no secret that Germany did not support the mainstream EU views on advertising. He acknowledged that the EU was seen by the other negotiators to be a reluctant partner, but stressed the Community was 100% behind a strong convention. Mr Rajala admitted that the EU was embarrassed by the debate over subsidies for tobacco farmers, which put it in an isolated position, and could not support the calls in the meeting for farming subsidies to be banned.