Helping developing countries is target

GENEVA (AP)--The European Union made a new proposal to allow foreign producers greater access to its farm markets Oct. 12, offering to cut the number of sensitive products that have higher import tariffs.

"Our proposal is clearly targeting helping developing countries," EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told The Associated Press. "This is the first full- fledged proposal on market access."

Brussels is offering to reduce the number of products where it considers its own farmers most vulnerable to foreign competition--such as beef and poultry--from 10 percent of its total to 8 percent, said trade officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as negotiations continue between the EU and other WTO members.

Trade ministers from a powerful group of developing countries were also trying to work out a counterproposal asking for greater reductions in both U.S. and European Union farm subsidies.

Ministers from the so-called G-20 group, which is led by Brazil and India, had previously given a cautious welcome to new offers from Washington and Brussels made this week, but said they did not go far enough in trimming actual payments, said Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.

"We welcome the fact that it was made, we think that it's a positive step, but there's also an agreement that it's an insufficient step," said Amorim.

"The numbers that we, as the G-20, will be putting on the table will imply real cuts," Amorim added.

At a Hong Kong summit scheduled for the end of the year, the World Trade Organization's 148 members are supposed to agree on an outline for a global trade deal. But progress has stalled, largely because of the thorny issue of U.S. and EU farm subsidies.

The current round of global trade talks, launched in 2001, is set to conclude next year. It sets out to boost the global economy by lowering trade barriers across all sectors, with particular emphasis on developing countries, for whom farm subsidies are a sensitive topic.

Negotiations were given a boost Oct. 10, when U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman outlined a new proposal on agricultural tariffs and subsidies, saying the EU and Japan must now promise to do more to cut aid to their own farmers.

While Washington's offer was for cuts of 60 percent, Portman said the EU and Japan would have to make reductions of 80 percent, since their subsidy levels are higher.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson responded with an offer of deeper cuts, but stopped short of Washington's demands. Brussels offered to cut its subsidies in products including wheat, dairy goods and rice by 70 percent--five percentage points higher than its previous pledge.

Japan's Agriculture Minister, Mineichi Iwanaga, said his country could not accept the U.S. offer as a basis for discussion and cannot accept any restrictions on its tariffs.

Although Portman insisted the U.S. offer meant "real cuts" in subsidies, G-20 ministers said it would only affect the total amount Washington is able to pay and fail to reduce what it actually gives out to farmers--and so would not help to open the American market to producers from developing countries.