PARIS, July 21 (Xinhuanet) -- French President Jacques Chirac described Wednesday as "unacceptable" a proposal made by World Trade Organization (WTO) on agriculture to restart the Doha round multilateral negotiations.
"I want the (European) commission to do everything to substantially re-balance this text, which is unacceptable in its current form," Chirac said in a statement released by his office.
"France wishes the Doha round to be completed but would not agree with the negotiations concluded on such a basis," he said.
The text previews ending some subventions to agricultural exportations, but without other compensation measures as the European Union (EU) proposed.
WTO released in Geneva last week a draft of compromise in orderto bring nearer its 147 members, 15 days before the dead line to relaunch the Doha (Qatar) round negotiations, which was started inNovember 2001 and is expected to be closed by the end of this year.
"This proposal is profoundly unbalanced to the detriment of theinterests of the European Union," the French president said.
He estimated that "the poorest countries' interests, notably African cotton producers, are ignored even though the justification for this round is development."
He also said that "in the field of agriculture, parallel treatment condition of all forms of export subsidies was not observed... in the non-agriculture subjects, the European interests are not satisfactorily taken into consideration." WTO member states planned to hold a meeting of its general council on July 27 and 28 in Geneva to examine the draft, which calls on WTO members to "ensure the parallel elimination of all forms of (agricultural) export subsidies ... by a credible end date."
The EU has agreed to this proposal but only on condition that the United States take steps to eliminate its export credits and export credit guarantees, what the EU called trade-distorting subsidies.www.chinaview.cn:
