Brussels / Geneva, 12/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission reserved a somewhat cool reception for the first draft compromise put forward in Geneva on Wednesday on the highly sensitive chapter of the liberalisation of agricultural trade, submitted by Stuart Harbinson, Hong Kong Ambassador responsible for chairing negotiations. The draft - which will be made public the day after the mini ministerial of Tokyo (see above) - is said to be outside the remit on "important issues" dealt with in the ministerial declaration of Doha and is said to be on the whole too much one-sided along the lines of the United states and the Cairns Group, without adequately providing for safeguards to preserve the multi-purpose aspect of agriculture and facilitating inclusion of developing countries in the system, sources in Brussels say, though reluctantly admitting that this text "could facilitate the quest for a consensus".
Here are the most significant passages of the European reaction: "The Commission notes with regret that the paper appears unbalanced, spreading the burden very unevenly amongst the developed countries, and that it does not reflect the balance of views put forward by the members of the WTO… Some of the key objectives … of Doha are absent from the draft …, for example the commitment to take non-trade concerns into account in negotiations and to reduce all forms of export subsidies… The draft text applies unbalanced disciplines to the different forms of export subsidy…it fails to address the huge market distortions created by certain forms of subsidies typically granted in other major developed countries. In many key respects this draft follows the policy lines of countries primarily interested in exports to the detriment of other interests… We also regret the absence of ambition with respect to tariff and quota free access for the least developed countries to developed country markets and the absence of concrete proposals on the difficulties faced by other developing countries confronted with the erosion of their preferential access to developed country markets". In Brussels, sources do, however, welcome "Mr. Harbinson's inclusion of our proposals on special treatment for the agricultural crops of particular importance to developing countries for food security". They then insist: "Negotiations must now accelerate, within the parameters set by Doha, to reach agreement on the modalities by the end of March".
Also criticised on the other side of the world - if one is to judge by the mitigated reaction of New Zealand, member of Cairns - Mr. Harbinson's paper handed to the 144 in Geneva, provides, among other things, for export subsidies gradually disappearing in two stages (5 and 10 years) and that tariff reductions are steeper there where duties are currently the highest. Mr. Harbinson, moreover, admits that "this paper does not represent anything more than an initial attempt to identify paths towards solutions.