Brussels, 23/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - The informal consultations held in Paris on 23 September between the European Union, the United States, India and Brazil (the G-4), on trade negotiations at the WTO, made "significant headway" on certain points, but also showed once again that "a lot of work remains to be done" to relaunch the Doha Round, Commissioner Peter Mandelson told the press. "Each country must work harder to put flesh on the bones of the proposals made, in order to reach a consensus", he said, speaking at a joint press conference with the American Trade Representative Rob Portman, the Brazilian Minister for foreign affairs, Celso Amorim, and the Indian trade Minister, Kamal Nath. According to Mr Mandelson, the EU should develop its proposals on market access for agricultural products, whilst the United States should concentrate on the issue of its agricultural subsidies. On access to the agricultural markets, the four delegations meeting in Paris on Friday agreed to the formula put forward by the emerging countries of the G-20 for their tariff reductions (see below), as a good basis for negotiations. "The proposals of the G-20 are considered to be a good basis", the Brazilian Minister, Mr Amorin, confirmed before the press. "We held an open and frank decision on all the important subjects", said the American Mr Portman, speaking alongside him. "After these discussions, I am more optimistic about our ability to overcome our differences of opinion", he added.
Agriculture was, however, not the only subject on the agenda in Paris: the Four also agreed to suggest that a "hardcore" of WTO member countries be set up in order to breathe new life into negotiations on services. In the view of Rob Portman, this is a "breakthrough". "We made a real breakthrough today on services", he told the press. Creating this kind of group of countries is an "important procedural step, which will also have implications on the substance" of negotiations on services, he said. Mr Mandelson stressed that "we won't get anywhere in Hong Kong if we don't go forward decisively in negotiations on manufactured products and services".
On Thursday evening, after his bilateral meeting with Rob Portman, Commissioner Mandelson told the press that both sides were determined to break the agricultural deadlock in which Doha Round is caught up. To this end, the EU is prepared to make its contribution to each of the three pillars of agricultural negotiations- market access, internal support to farmers, aid to export- Mr Mandelson stated. On market access, the EU will respect the framework agreement of last July and is soon to submit proposals for reductions in customs duties on all agricultural products imported into the EU, thus offering the EU's partners "substantially better" market access, Mr Mandelson announced. "No tariff line or product will be excluded", he said. The Commissioner said that the "sensitive products", for which the EU will ask to keep higher levels of protection, will be kept down to "a minimum".
Like the United States, the EU has now agreed to the formula for tariff reduction proposed by the GE-20 as a basis for discussions. This formula provides for five brackets of import tariffs, with decreasing linear reductions within each of the brackets (lesser reductions for the developing countries than for the developed countries), and an upper limit on these tariffs. However, the EU hopes to bring more flexibility into the system, to allow it to protect certain sensitive products, without any upper limit on tariffs. The Americans and the members of the Cairns group (agricultural exporting countries: Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, South Africa, etc) continue to oppose this.
On aid to export, Mr Mandelson also reaffirmed the EU's commitment to phase out subsidies to agricultural exports. "There will be a final date (in the text of the future agreement) on removing the subsidies", but the EU would like to follow a gradual approach, with different dates for the phasing out of aid to export, which would vary according to the different groups of products.
Export subsidies for certain farm products could be scrapped once the Doha Round has been concluded, explained Mandelson, but other aid would only be eliminated at a later date, some of it at a much later date, but even for this, there would be a deadline in the agreement he said.
The EU has already made great changes to its internal farm aid system as part of the reform of the CAP, and expects the United States to follow suit and cut their huge arsenal of export subsidies for farm products, said Mandelson. Rob Portman responded that the United States was prepared to cut its farm aid as soon as it sees progress in other areas.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, told reporters she was delighted that the negotiations between the EU and the US were moving from the very abstract to the more concrete on all three big farm issues.