Luxembourg, 18/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - Meeting at the extraordinary General Affairs Council on Tuesday convened following a request by France (see EUROPE 9049, p.6), the EU25's foreign ministers reiterated their backing for the EU negotiators at the World Trade Organisation, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel, ahead of the December 2005 Hong Kong WTO Summit. The Council conclusions explain: 'The Council recalled that its conclusions from October 1999 to July 2005 remain valid and together constitute the Commission's mandate for the DDA negotiations. The Council recalled as regards the negotiations in agriculture that the CAP reform is Europe's important contribution to the DDA and constitutes the limits for the Commission's negotiating brief in the WTO Round.' The Council 'reconfirmed the importance of achieving a balanced outcome within and across all of the main elements of the Doha Work Programme, and its commitment to a successful result based on a broad and ambitious agenda with a specific focus on the needs and interests of developing countries. The Council underlined that all WTO partners need to make contributions to those negotiations, commensurate with their level of development…. In the light of the significance of these issues and, in the run-up to the Conference in Hong Kong of 13-18 December, the Council agreed to revert to the matter at its forthcoming meetings, and to meet as appropriate during the Conference itself in order to provide the Commission with any further necessary guidance.' At a press conference following the Council, the UK's foreign minister, President of the Council of the EU, Jack Straw, said the Member States and Commission had agreed on the need to maintain and increase transparency and information flows now that the most intense phase of negotiations was beginning. He said the Commission and Member States' technical experts would be meeting in Geneva on Wednesday morning to compare notes on socio-economic impacts of the Commission's conditional offer, particularly on access to farm trade (which ruffles French feathers the most).
Despite having got the backing of 12 Member States in an open letter recently reminding the EU negotiators of the 'limits' to their negotiating mandate and its desire to get a priori control over any new moves made in the WTO negotiations, in the end France only won the concession that a meeting of experts would be held to assess the impact of Peter Mandelson and Mariann Fischer-Boel's latest concessions at the WTO. The idea of holding this purely advisory meeting of experts (aimed to reassure Member States that Europe's negotiators would not exceed their mandate) was backed by Greece, Hungary, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Lithuania, but the French idea of a priori control over the Commission's concessions in the negotiations did not gain consensus among ministers and was therefore not included in the Council conclusions. Jack Straw said that during the discussions, all 25 Member States had intervened, demonstrating the importance they place on the WTO negotiations. Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Estonia and Malta gave full backing to Commissioners Mandelson and Fischer-Boel in the negotiations. Jack Straw explained that no negotiations would be possible if you had to negotiate not only with the WTO partners, but also with various internal bodies at a permanent meeting. He added that this would frankly make negotiations impossible and remove all power from the EU negotiators. Using his excellent diplomatic skills, the British foreign minister recognised the legitimacy of some of the French fears and the French government's call for control over the Commissioners, saying that the impact of the farm negotiations would not be symmetrical across all Member States since farming's contribution to the national economy varied widely from one Member State to another. He added that for this reason, it was certainly not a matter of criticising France, a country with a huge agriculture industry. The Netherlands was more critical of France. Dutch foreign minister Atzo Nicolai said the meeting hadn't been needed, although it had been necessary to boost the Commission's role. In this connection, he said the Dutch regretted that the Council conclusions left too much room for diverging interpretation - the group of experts has nothing to say and nothing to decide. The Commission remains within its mandate and that's how it should be, he added.
A few minutes before the end of the Council, Commissioner Peter Mandelson said: 'If taken literally, that would stop the world trade talks in their tracks. The mandate belongs to the Council, tactics belong to the Commission.' Both Peter Mandelson and Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel welcomed Tuesday's 'very useful' discussions and the renewed backing they had been given by the Council of Ministers. Mandelson had warm praise for the unconditional backing received from Germany.
to European negotiators by Germany. Mr Mandelson said the very strong commitment shown by Member States to conclude the Doha Round at a high level of ambition is encouraging. He went on to add that some Member States have specific economic and agricultural interests, and all points of view must be taken into account. During the discussions, the Member States expressed two sorts of concern: on transparency and balance, he said. Austria, Denmark and Ireland above all stressed the need for transparent and regular information on the part of the Commission. In this context, Mr Mandelson assured the Council that he would remain fully and constantly informed of what the Commission is doing in his name. On the subject of balanced talks, Mr Mandelson recalled that balanced progress was necessary not only for the agricultural chapter but also in the other negotiation sectors, NAMA, industrial goods and services. “It is important to stress that negotiations will not move forward unless we focus on agriculture and access to the agricultural market”, the European Commissioner concluded.
The result of Tuesday's General Affairs Council is therefore a serious setback for France which arrived in Luxembourg with a document analysing the Commission's agricultural proposals in an attempt to “reframe” European negotiations. The document, which points out that the “Commission has reached the red lines of its mandate and has even gone beyond them on some products”, reveals that the Commission's proposals on access to the agricultural market would result in an average 35% reduction in European tariff barriers and not 24.5% as some European negotiators say. “If the technical analysis (to be formulated by Commission and Council experts on Wednesday, in Geneva) allow it to be established that the mandate has not been complied with, then it will be up to the European Commission to draw the consequences and, if it has not yet done so, France will do so”, Mr Douste-Blazy warned before returning to Paris after the Council.