Brussels, 26/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - Despite strong individual differences in assessing the European Commission's negotiation method and the draft framework agreement presented by the WTO last week, EU Member States last week unanimously reiterated the Union's commitment and ambition to achieve a "balanced" framework agreement in Geneva this week on finalising Doha Round trade talks. Meeting in General Affairs Council on Monday in extraordinary session, the EU Foreign Ministers also expressed their support for the Commission and decided to hold another extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers toward the end of the week (most probably in Geneva) in order to put the finishing touches to the EU's final position on the final version of the framework agreement that should be endorsed by the WTO General Council by Friday. The Council confirmed the Union's commitment to reach a framework agreement on future negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda. The Council backed the approach proposed by the Commission for negotiations in Geneva this week and stressed the importance, above all, of achieving a better balance between the texts presented by the WTO, the approved Council conclusions state. This is a "clear political message of support for the Commission", Council President Bernard Bot explained to the press. The result of talks this week in Geneva (where the decisive meeting of the WTO General Council opened on Tuesday) must "keep the momentum up" for the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) without, however, prejudging the position that the Union will adopt in completing negotiations on the Doha Round as a whole, the conclusions say.
Initially, the Dutch Presidency had foreseen adopting longer and more detailed conclusions, but France objected to this after having tried, in vain, to make amendments to the Presidency text. The French amendments were along the lines of specifying the "imbalance" that, according to Paris, appears in the WRTO text, especially on agricultural issues. In its criticism of the draft WTO agreement (and partly the way negotiations are conducted by the Commission), France was supported on Monday by many delegations mainly (with sometimes considerable differences) by Greece, Ireland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Lithuania. Germany felt that the WTO text was a "good base" but "lopsided" as it is too focused on agriculture and too little on market opening for industrial products.
Germany, as a large exporter country, is the main interested party, when it comes to improving market access; on this point the draft WTO text constitutes the "absolute minimum", which could "in no case" be subject to further downward revision, asserted the German minister for the economy, Wolfgang Clement. This criticism did not, however, prevent the Council from adopting conclusions in support of the Commission, while pointing out the limits of its negotiating mandate.
Addressing the press, Commissioner Pascal Lamy (trade) welcomed the "fruitful" conclusions, declaring that "we now have a very strong and very clear negotiating mandate, with a lot of political energy. It's exactly what we'll need during this terribly difficult week in Geneva". The Union has made a "strong commitment" to work in support of a positive result in this week's negotiations "but without rebalancing the text on the table". Among the necessary re-balances, Lamy cited reform of the US agricultural policy ("which is at the same price as our CAP reform"), market access for industrial products, services, facilitation of trade and development, "which can be found on the table today as far as industrial tariffs, services, development and facilitation of trade is the strict minimum of what we will be able to agree to". Agriculture: the draft WTO is not that clear: if the EU offers to reduce export subsidies to zero it has the right to know exactly what concessions its partners are prepared to make in exchange so that the EU can assess the equivalence of offers. Moreover, this precision is still lacking, deplored Lamy. In order to reassure member countries (including France, mainly) for whom there was no question on agricultural offers made by the Commission, of going (in negotiations) beyond what had been decided in the framework of CAP reform. Agricultural reform last year, decision on Mediterranean products and what will be decided on the sugar sector will be final EU frontier. The fact that several member countries, due to their own sensitive issues (notably in farming), had criticised the Commission's approach in negotiations does not threaten any weakening of the Union's position in Geneva from the moment that the Council's conclusions are clear and ambiguous, which is the case today. Mr Lamy chose not to speculate on the chances of success of the negotiations of this week but consider that if, by bad luck, discussions breakdown, there would therefore one side that was not guilty: the European Union as "it is the European Union which over recent months put the wood on the fire".