Luxembourg, 19/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said in Luxembourg on 19 June that an agreement was “always possible” in WTO talks on the Doha Round. She added that the EU would not make a new unilateral offer on agriculture, unless the United States made an effort regarding internal subsidies and reduced its ambitions when it comes to tariff reductions for European imports. She said that the EU still had a small margin of manoeuvre when it comes to agriculture, an opinion that is not shared by several agriculture ministers meeting the same day. France, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Greece and Austria as well as Slovenia and Hungary were categorically opposed to any new concession on the part of the EU regarding agriculture and said, in substance, that it was better for talks to stall than to have a bad agreement. In the opposite camp, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom as well as Slovakia and Estonia called on all partners to make a better offer in order to facilitate a compromise.
Dominique Bussereau, the French minister, who referred to the reported intention of Peter Mandelson to conditionally improve the European agricultural offer, said “there is no question of making new unilateral concessions except if the others start making a move relating to industry and services”.
“Negotiations are now reaching a turning point”, said the Austrian agriculture minister, Josef Pröll, whose country holds the half-yearly rotating EU Council presidency. “Europe wants a solution for all economic sectors” and the “principle of parallelism must apply”, he stressed. “Europe must not be the only one to make concessions. It is now up to the others to make proposals”, especially in industry, Mr Pröll said.