Brussels, 01/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - In a first reaction to the US Farm Bill 2007 for the next ten years, a document that the US Secretary of State for Agriculture, Mike Johanns, forwarded to Congress on Wednesday, the Commission considers as insufficient the new offer made by Washington for reducing farm subsidies, to allow an agreement to be reached in the context of Doha trade talks. The 183-page document “will need careful study before we reach definitive conclusions”, a Commission press release states. “So far as Doha is concerned, it is not possible for us to form a clear view from this proposal of what the Administration's negotiating approach will be”, the Commission added. A first reading of the text allows it to note “a modest shift towards more 'green' direct payments”. It also specifies that it will make a more detailed examination of the US proposals on “counter-cyclical payments” to see if they offer any genuine improvement. On the other hand, it deplores the fact that cuts in the Loan Deficiency Payments (the basic safety net of the 2002 Farm Bill) are “extremely modest” and that the “key trade distorting programmes for dairy and sugar remain virtually untouched”. “The proposals assume that commodity prices will remain at their current high levels. If so, US farm support will be lower. But if price trends change, trade distorting farm support would rise again under these proposals”, the Commission goes on to say. “If we are to have a successful outcome to the Doha Round, the US will need to propose more ambitious cuts and disciplines in trade-distorting domestic farm subsidies”, it concludes, recalling that the Union offers a reduction of 70% on its own subsidies through CAP reform. (eh)