Brussels, 14/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Member State experts for trade questions (133 Committee) gave a mixed reception on Friday to a letter from Commissioners Pascal Lamy and Franz Fischler, which was sent to the WTO with a view to restarting the Doha Round (EUROPE of 11 May, p.7). This more pronounced internal political opposition, which could make the EU's position weaker at international level, will not prevent the European Commission from continuing to try to get the negotiations going again (see below).
Poland and Hungary have joined France and Ireland in the camp of countries hostile to the content of the EU's offer (unconditional removal of agricultural subsidies), and the timing chosen to launch the initiative. They criticised the Commission for choosing to offer concessions without having previously obtained commitments from the EU's partners in the WTO. Furthermore, seven countries- Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania- have entered varying degrees of reservations of the Commission's strategy towards the WTO. Italy, Greece and Portugal have criticised the Commission for having passed over the issue of the recognition of European geographical indications in the letter. On the other side, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden have defended the initiative by Mr Lamy and Mr Fischler, for example in the meeting of the Agriculture Minister in Ireland last Tuesday (EUROPE of 12 May, p.11).
After harsh statements by the French Agriculture Minister, Hervé Gaymard, President Chirac said on Thursday that he had reservations on the EU's conditional offer to remove export subsidies. According the spokesperson to the Elysée, Catherine Colonna, quoted by AFP, Mr Chirac feels that there needs to be "parallelism in the movements and gestures of both sides". She added that "the process of phasing out aid to export cannot seriously continue unless all countries agree to put all existing forms of aid on the table".