Brussels, 07/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - Despite the failure of the last meeting of the WTO Agriculture Committee, Commissioner Franz Fischler repeated, on Thursday, that the "EU remains firmly committed to reaching agreement on the modalities by the target date agreed at Doha, i.e. 31 March 2003". After meeting Stuart Harbinson, who chaired negotiations in this sector, Mr Fischler felt it was of utmost importance to assess policies according to the distorting effect they have on trade. The Commissioner added that all policies do not have the same distorting effect on trade and all parties have not progressed along the same lines. He hoped these two elements would be taken into account during the debate on modalities. He deplored the confusion reigning regarding the way internal aid and its close relation with trade distortion is measured. Mr Fischler explained that, unlike the Uruguay Round Agreements (which establish different rules depending on the effect that the different policies have on trade), the Producer Support Estimate (PSE) developed by the OECD, which is often used in the debate, does not take into account the varying distorting effect on trade that the different policies have. Mr Fischler specified that the OECD had recently corrected the goal by defining a new "more promising" approach, but that this approach has not yet been taken into account in the negotiations.