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EU offers to cut farm tariffs sharply

From wire reports
July 22, 2008

GENEVA - Facing the possibility of another trade talks collapse, the European Union said yesterday that it would be willing to slash its farm tariffs by an average of 60 percent as part of a new global commerce pact - a deeper cut than it has ever offered.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said his offer, up from 54 percent, was designed to kick-start a week of crucial talks for the World Trade Organization's seven-year effort to open up the global economy.

But to understand how hard it will be to get a deal among nearly 150 nations this week, consider the breadth of topics the United States has discussed in recent days: ethanol tariffs, farm subsidies and auto manufacturing with Brazil; outsourcing and immigration rules with India; and textiles and small-farmer protection with China.

Washington praised the new offer yesterday.

"These are the right kind of moves," said Gretchen Hamel, spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

The talks this week in Geneva are seen as the last chance to achieve a global deal to liberalize trade in the near future. With a presidential election looming in the United States and Europe scheduled to change its trade negotiator next year, a breakthrough this week is seen as essential to any hopes of a swift agreement.

Europe and the United States want developing countries such as Brazil and China to open up more of their markets for industrial goods and services in exchange for concessions on agriculture. Washington has said it is willing to cut farm subsidies.

But developing countries remain dissatisfied with the concessions offered so far by Europe and United States on agriculture.

Rich and poor countries have clashed repeatedly in the WTO talks launched in Qatar's capital in 2001, now known as the Doha round. Negotiators are hoping for agreement this week on a deal that would liberalize world agriculture and manufacturing, setting the stage for an overall trade accord by the end of the year. But there is widespread skepticism.

Mandelson told reporters the EU had "decided to help the negotiations this week get off to a strong start by raising the average cut in our agricultural tariff."

"That is a very considerable improvement on our own part," he said.

But what exactly the offer entailed was unclear. Some trade officials suggested the cut was only an EU recalculation of its previous offer, while others suspected some creative mathematics. Marianne Fischer Boel, the EU farm commissioner, and Michel Barnier, her French counterpart, denied that the EU had given ground.

"You can put anything in and come to a number," said Foreign Minister Celso Amorim of Brazil, which co-leads with India a broad coalition of developing countries. "Let's see if that 60 percent comes with the products that are of interest to us, such as ethanol, sugar and beef. If not, it's not meaningful."

Mandelson said the offer was not a gift, and he called for lower tariffs on industrial goods from countries such as Brazil, India and China in exchange. He said he had yet to see "any movement or any flexibility on industrial tariffs from the fast-growing economies."

Related topic galleries: Agricultural Research and Technology, Farms, Ethanol, Agriculture

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