Brussels, 19/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - At the meeting of the Agriculture-Fisheries Council in Brussels on Monday, seven Member States voice their concern about the way negotiations on the WTO's agricultural package on trade liberalisation (Doha Round) are proceeding, after the meeting between the European Commissioners for Trade and Agriculture and representatives of the American administration, which was held in Washington from 13 to 16 September. The representatives of the EU, the United States, Brazil and India will meet in Paris on Thursday to resume negotiations on the Doha Round.
As the Council, the agriculture Ministers from seven at Member States of the EU (France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Austria, Hungary and Cyprus) openly criticise the Commission's tactics in the agricultural negotiations at the WTO. These Member States feel that the EU is offering too many concessions: removal of exporter subsidies and reducing customs duty in line with the formula recommended by the G20 (pa emerging countries), which provides for tariffs to be reduced in brackets and for ys émergents and upper limit be placed on these duties. These seven Member States interpret all of this as the abandonment of the Community preference and in the EU. The Union offers guarantees, whereas the other countries (such as the United States, Australia and Canada) have baulked at following suit in the fields of export credit, at food aid and State commercial undertakings, they protest.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Mariann Fischer Boel, said that she had given no ground to the Americans. She also complained that the United States had taken as their basis data from the common agricultural policy (CAP) dating from 2001, even though the EU made considerable efforts to reduce aid when the CAP was reformed in 2003.
As though aiming to respond to the criticisms voiced by these Member States at the Agriculture Conucil, the Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson made a speech at a symposium held in Brussels on Monday morning (on the subject “Market access and competitiveness”), in which he ruled out the possibility of the EU making any further gestures in the form of additional concessions in the field of agriculture until the other partners have made equivalent offers. "My Member States will quite simply not agree to make any further gestures to the benefit of the others, unless they move forward in parallel with us", said Mr Mandelson. The Commissioner also took the opportunity to repeat his concerns on the way in which negotiations on the Doha Round were unfolding in general, particularly in the field of services. "I am very concerned at the lack of quality of the revised offers and at the low level of participation in the negotiations on services", he said. "The countdown has started to the Hong Kong ministerial in 10 weeks' time", he added.