Brussels, 20/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - During Thursday's Council, the Agriculture Ministers of the EU Member States united behind Commissioner Franz Fischler in rejecting the proposals put forward by Stuart Harbinson on liberalisation of farm trade submitted last weekend in Tokyo to the members of the WTO (see EUROPE of 18 February, p.11). A large majority of Member States asked, like Mr Fischler, that a second version of the Harbinson paper taking account of the four main concerns should be developed before the meeting of the Agriculture Committee of the WTO on 24-28 February. These four concerns are to: - ensure a better balance between what the main exporters of developing countries (like Brazil and India) are asking and what the least developed countries are asking for; - reserve equal treatment between export subsidies (that the EU already agreed to reduce during the Uruguay Round and that it is today proposing to reduce by another 45%) and export credits, or food aid, massively used by some WTO members, including the United States; - not to assimilate the measures for supporting the "blue box" to those of the "yellow box" (this being judged a "provocation"); and take into account the non-commercial concerns.
Greek Farm Minister Georgios Drys said during a press conference that the discussions had shown that Mr Harbinson's paper was very far from our concerns and that the ministers were not able to accept it. With the support of the Member States, Franz Fischler explained the message addressed to Geneva for continued negotiations: - "it is clear that we want to respect the 31 March deadline" for reaching the modalities of farm trade liberalisation; - alongside the three purely commercial pillars (export subsidies, internal support, market access) "we had decided in Doha to take two other themes into account" (non commercial aspects and the special treatment to be reserved for developing countries); - we must continue along the lines of the Uruguay Round by abolishing trade distortion ("proposals are conceived in such a way that it is impossible for us to continue along this road", Mr Fischler said). By way of conclusion, the Commissioner felt that it in Geneva they needed to redraft "a new paper, which is better balance and that will allow fair sharing out between the developing countries, which are the main exporters and the less advanced countries…if not this round will not deserve to be called a development round".
In response to journalists, Mr Fischler gave assurances that Europe was not isolated in its attitude and quoted the same views from Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, China and other allies in the group of 60 developing countries which had, in the context of Doha negotiations, subscribed to the EU initiative for defending sustainable agriculture.
During the debate at the Council, Mr Fischler pointed out that the document did not respond to commitments made at Doha for framing all kinds of export subsidies, while admitting that the document by Mr Harbinson provided all the elements "that have a certain value" concerning State Trading Entreprises".