Agence France Presse | July 28, 2003
WASHINGTON (AFP) - European farm boss Franz Fischler warned that a global deal to liberalize agricultural trade is at risk unless all countries now give ground.
World Trade Organization ministers are to meet in Cancun, Mexico, in September to try to boost bogged-down negotiations for an agreement toppling global trade barriers by the end of 2004.
In the run-up to Cancun, a core group of 27 international trade ministers was meeting in Montreal, Canada on Monday to try to inject life into the process.
Farm trade is one of the stumbling blocks.
"If everybody is only repeating the position which we know already for more than a year then we will not make much progress," Fischler warned at a breakfast meeting here.
The European agriculture commissioner said he hoped the meeting in Cancun would lead to drawing up concrete "modalities", including numerical targets to lower trade barriers.
"Our preferred option is that we agree modalities in Cancun because this is needed if we would like to finalize the negotiations in due time before the end of 2004," Fischler said.
The United States and Europe must find more common ground before spearheading worldwide progress, he said.
"If we are not able to move in Cancun and to take the necessary action then there is a real risk of a delay of the process," he said, a day after meeting with top US policymakers.
On farm trade, Europe had already done a lot by reforming its four-decade-old Common Agricultural Policy to end a system under which farmers receive subsidies to produce more goods, leading to huge surpluses, Fischler said.
"What we cannot accept as Europeans is that you (the United States) say: 'Thank you very much, you did a good reform but what is next?'.
"Also for reasons of fairness, all parties in this process must contribute to a positive outcome," Fischler added.
"We made a major contribution and now I think we have the right to expect that others show what their contribution to the Doha Round (of trade liberalization talks) would be."
Liberalizing agricultural trade is considered one of the stumbling blocks to meeting the deadline for a new world trade agreement, the agenda for which was set in Doha, Qatar in 2001.
Fischler, who met Sunday with US counterpart Ann Veneman and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, said a deal remained feasible.
"In my view it should be possible," Fischler said. "The differences between us are not (so) big that they could not be bridged."
Broad questions of domestic subsidies and market access present the highest hurdles, Fischler said.
Among the other specific areas of US-European dispute are:
GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATORS
-- Europe wants a list of about 38 places -- such as Parma, the hometown of Parma ham in Italy -- to be protected as names of origin, thus banning foreign copycats.
It would accept a similar list from other countries.
The lists should be included in the agreed modalities drawn up in Cancun, Fischler said, admitting however that he met resistance to the concept in his talks with Veneman and Zoellick.
"For the time being we have no common position on that," he said.
GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS
-- The United States is complaining to the WTO that Europe maintains a de facto ban on foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) without any scientific basis.
But Fischler said Europe had since introduced rules on labeling and tracing the origin of GMO products, removing any need for European member countries to bar the goods.
First approvals for imported products containing GMO products may be given this year, Fischler said.
"In our view, there is therefore no reason whatsoever any more to challenge the European Union in a panel before the WTO," he said.Agence France Presse:
