Brussels, 13/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the day before the "mini-ministerial" meeting to be held in Tokyo begins, a meeting that will gather 25 of the 144 WTO members from 14 to 16 February, Commissioner Franz Fischler was highly critical when speaking to the press about Stuart Harbinson's draft modalities paper on agriculture (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.12, on the first Commission reaction, and p.11 on what the Union expected to come out of the Tokyo meeting). "In this draft, we find few elements which offer the possibility of bridging the differences between WTO members. The overall balance within the proposal between the different interests of Members is lacking", Mr Fischler said. In his view, the proposal mainly brings benefits to the "strong exporting countries and costs are mainly for countries which, while systematically reducing trade-distorting support, pursue policies reflecting domestic objectives which go beyond untrammelled free trade, and which are linked with social, economic and environmental sustainability". Instead of speeding up negotiations on concluding an agreement on the modalities of trade liberalisation before 31 March this year, Mr Harbinson's contribution could slow things down, the Commissioner warned. He hoped, however, that the Tokyo meeting would make it possible to bring points of views closer.
The Commissioner pointed out that "WTO was about trade, and further commitments about trade negotiations in agriculture should be balanced, reflect the manner by which agricultural policies distort trade, and provide incentives to move towards less trade distorting policies. He went on to add: that this is what they had agreed to do during the Uruguay Round talks and also what was agreed in Doha. In his view, Mr Harbinson's paper "fails to do this". He went on to summarise Mr Harbinson's approach, adding a certain amount of irony:
- "In the developed world, those that moved in a direction that is consistent with what was agreed in the previous round are penalised, while those that reversed direction get rewarded";
- "In the developing world, those that need a boost to reap the benefits from trade find themselves treated equally with those more developed, or fully developed".
- "And those concerned about enhancing the provision of public goods, from environment to food safety, see their non-trade concerns ignored".
Mr Fischler gave the following examples to illustrate his remarks:
- The EU has undertaken to reduce all forms of export subsidies. "The EU has respected our commitments from the Uruguay Agreement on Agriculture (URAA), and we are asked to phase out completely this policy instrument with a significant down-payment. But those that use other instruments to subsidise exports, from export credits to food aid, in a totally trade-distorting way, are not even asked to pay for the fact that the commitment of the previous round to discipline these forms of export support has not been fulfilled. On the contrary, significant loopholes are allowed in the future".
- With regards domestic support, "the EU has followed the path towards less-trade distorting policies, shifting with Agenda 2000 a significant part of our domestic support from the amber box to the blue box". But Mr Harbinson's paper "considers the blue box roughly as trade distorting as the amber box". Also, the reference period chosen in Mr Harbinson's proposal to reduce "blue box" aid "penalises ex-post (…) reform by starting to apply during the period of its implementation". Other WTO members, like the United States, are treated differently and may continue to pay aid creating trade distortion, Mr Fischler notes.
- Concerning market access, "the balance between reducing tariffs and expanding access for developing countries that would characterise this round as a development round was lost. (…) Further market access becomes an instrument to accommodate developed exporters, instead of a means to differentiate access for the benefit of the developing world".
France considers WTO agricultural proposal unacceptable as it is
In a press release, French Agriculture Minister Hervé Gaymard considers the proposal from the WTO farm mediator was "unacceptable as it was because it was excessive, unfavourable to poor countries and out of balance for Europe". "The European Union has made an ambitious proposal that fully answers the commitments taken in Doha in November 2001. It is a shame he did not take it into account", the French Minister deplores. Mr Gaymard stresses that, if the proposal is adopted, it will "prevent Europe from maintaining an economically strong and ecologically responsible farm policy and would threaten over half of Europe's farming activity".