Free trade focus
EU blasts US as free trade progress slips out of sight
single block' to the successful completion of the Doha round of
trade negotiations, casting doubts that a successful conclusion can
ever be achieved.
The FT, which has obtained an advance copy of Peter Mandelson's speech in Finland, says that he will call on World Trade Organisation (WTO) member countries to make realistic demands and offers of cuts in tariffs and subsidies.
"At this point I am looking first to the US for more of this," he will say.
This is not a new theme. In January, Mandelson claimed that the stalling Doha round of negotiations on global agricultural trade tariffs was not the fault of Brussels but the result of intransigence from other states.
He argued in Berlin that Europe does not hold the key to the next step of progress, and said that the bloc had so far put far more on the table than any other WTO member.
Last minute negotiations at the WTO's Hong Kong Ministerial in December which discussed the breaking down of global trade barriers to agricultural products - resulted in an interim agreement that will mean negotiators have return to the bargaining table in 2006.
The result was viewed as 'modest' because it avoided earlier outright failures, though it did not secure any major breakthrough. Development organisations however expressed disappointment at the outcome for failing to deliver on its promises.
And time is now running out. WTO director general Pascal Lamy has warned that the final deadline for agreement is fast approaching. The Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration called on countries to complete the 'modalities' for the agricultural and industrial goods negotiations by 30 April.
"To unblock agriculture, the US needs to move on domestic support, and the EU on market access," he said recently. "India, Brazil and other big developing countries, need to show greater flexibility on industrial goods."
Lamy said that if this deadline were to be missed, trade liberalisation on the scale envisaged by the Doha Round would become impossible to achieve in the near future.
But with the EU and US still at loggerheads, significant progress is unlikely.
During the Hong Kong negotiations, the US committed itself to cut domestic farm subsidies by 60 per cent within a five-year timeframe, and asked Europe to agree to reduce tariffs on farm imports by 55 per cent to 90 per cent.
But because the European Union imposes higher import tariffs than the United States, it argued that such a move would disproportionately hit European farmers.
Commissioner Mandelson however has argued that Europe has "shown again and again without due recognition that we are prepared to pay to keep the multilateral system on track.
"European agriculture cereals, poultry, beef and much besides - will contract and there will be a significant loss of employment as a result of our WTO offer," he said.
Ambassadors to the WTO will decide tonight whether the talks will meet the 30 April deadline to agree percentage cuts in tariffs and subsidies.
The chances of that happening appear to be very slim indeed.
