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The European Union on Monday backed its trade chief's "strategy and tactics" for forging a global trade deal, while stressing that any concessions on farm support had to be matched by the United States.
EU foreign ministers heard from EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy on the results of his weekend meeting in Paris with counterparts from the United States and four other big exporting nations.
The ministers expressed their "firm support for both strategy and tactics," Lamy told reporters afterward. "There were no objections."
In conclusions to be adopted at the end of Monday's meeting, the 25 EU countries gave "broad" support to Lamy, but also "underlined" that a deal had to "reflect key EU objectives and interests," including "full parallelism" on any commitments to scrap EU aid to farmers.
EU officials said that the United States and other big exporters had to go an equal distance to achieve "equivalent results."
The flurry of activity comes ahead of a July 31 deadline to reach the framework of a global deal at the World Trade Organization.
Differences between rich and poor countries on farm trade scuppered the last attempt at a September summit in Cancun, Mexico.
Since then, Washington and Brussels have made new overtures on "disciplining" their massive agricultural support programs, which critics say distort markets and make it impossible for developing countries to compete.
In May, the EU offered to end generous subsidies to its farmers - but only if the United States eliminates trade-distorting export credits and subsidized food aid, and Canada, Australia and New Zealand dismantle state trading monopolies.
France, which benefits the most from the EU's generous farm subsidies, had been most critical of Lamy's latest proposals.
On Sunday, Lamy suggested Washington might be able to keep some of its short-term export credits, which are government-backed loans enabling farmers to offer low-risk credit to overseas customers.
On Monday, however, he said he was "not yet" sure whether those loans would be acceptable. "If there are export credits which are not trade-distorting ... I'm not convinced," he said. "We have to dig on that."
Any credits that might be allowed would have to be under "extremely strict conditions," he added without elaborating.
Lamy also played down France's opposition, noting that unanimity is not required for most trade matters.
Lamy and his U.S. counterpart, Robert Zoellick, were leaving later Monday for the African island state of Mauritius to meet with trade officials from about 60 of the world's poorest countries.
Agricultural subsidies were expected to loom large on the agenda there. Poor countries want special focus on cotton, but the EU and United States argue any concessions there should be part of a broader agreement.Associated Press Worldstream:
