EU under pressure to avert Doha deadlock

Pressure mounted on the European Union on Thursday to agree a firm date for eliminating farm export subsidies, as World Trade Organisation ministers struggled to find ways to move the Doha trade round forward at the Hong Kong ministerial meeting that opened on Tuesday.

Rob Portman, US trade representative, said he feared the six-day meeting ? for which only modest goals had been set ? would fail to make the progress he had hoped for and might end by doing little more than setting a date for further negotiations next year.

Celso Amorim, Brazil?s foreign minister and leader of the Group of 20 developing country agriculture producers, echoed his downbeat assessment. ?I am afraid to say that, up to now, we were not able to see much progress in agriculture,? he said.

The US and the G20 say breaking the deadlock in agriculture is the key to making progress in the rest of the negotiations. They insist the onus is on the EU to improve its offer on market access and are pressing it to agree this week to a commitment to phasing out all export subsidies by 2010.

The EU has already agreed in principle to end its export subsidies but is refusing to set a timetable until the US pledges to reform its farm export credits and food aid programmes, which Brussels says represent unfair competition. It also wants Canada and other countries to dismantle agricultural state trading monopolies.

Mariann Fischer Boel, EU agriculture commissioner, said there was no question of the EU making ?unilateral concessions?. Peter Mandelson, trade commissioner, said no other countries had so far shown any signs of meeting Brussels? demands.

Mr Portman said he was nonetheless encouraged by indications that the EU might be ready to improve its agriculture offer if other, mainly developing, countries offered to open their goods and services markets more boldly.

Ministers are also striving to agree a package of trade and aid measures for poor countries, which they hope will be one of the few tangible results from this week?s meeting. It would include increased technical assistance, removal of import duties and quotas, and measures to help West African cotton producers.

Mr Portman offered yesterday to exempt West African cotton exports from trade restrictions. However, the proposal would have little impact, because the producers do not export to the US and face only a 2 per cent tariff.

?This is an empty promise,? said Phil Bloomer of Oxfam. ?The problem for West African cotton farmers is not market access. It is US subsidies that lead to dumping.?

Other discussions on the package focused yesterday on ensuring that the duty- and quota-free plan covered as many products and poor countries as possible.

The US has said it is unlikely to apply to textiles imports from Bangladesh and Cambodia that, it says, are too ?competitive?.