Brussels, 04/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - Published last Monday (EUROPE 9417) to seek to break the deadlock in the Doha talks on agriculture, the communication from Crawford Falconer, the chairman of agriculture negotiations at the WTO, will be discussed in Geneva on Monday 7 May by the 150 member nations of the multilateral organisation. EUROPE returns to the key elements of this new reference document which sets out a first series of ideas on possible convergence between the different stances of members on the three pillars of the agricultural chapter - domestic subsidies, export competition and market access.
Mr Falconer considers that, as far as the United States is concerned, overall internal subsidies that distort trade should “certainly” be under the $19 billion mark per year, whereas the current proposal from Washington would allow it to pay €22 billion, which is more than at present. In his view, “it is frankly inconceivable that the US will come out of this negotiation with an entitlement to spend more on overall trade distorting domestic support”. At the same time, Mr Falconer believes the fall in trade-distorting domestic support should be 70-80% - more probably 75-80% - in the case of the Union (i.e. a remaining allocation of €27.5 billion) as, he says, the Union has said that it may, in certain conditions, go as far as 75%.
Mr Falconer also considers that the reduction in customs duties should be close to the centre of gravity defined by the proposal from emerging G20 countries. It should exceed 50% and be between 65% and 80% for the highest tariffs. Furthermore, while the Union is calling for 8% and the United States wants to keep it at 1%, sensitive products should no longer account for over 5% of tariff lines.
Finally, stressing that none of the limits in the list of special products proposed at this stage - at least 20% of tariff lines and at least 3 or 4 products - seems realistic, Mr Falconer considers that the developing countries should be able to keep 5-8% of “their” sensitive products, and that duties applicable to these products should be reduced. The mediator for agricultural negotiations suggests that the cut for developing countries should be around two-thirds of the cuts for developed countries, their customs duties being reduced by 36% on average as the rich countries did during the Uruguay Round. (eh)