Mandelson's WTO farm plan faces showdown
LUCIA KUBOSOVA
17.10.2005 @ 18:44 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign ministers are set to clash in Luxembourg on Tuesday (18 October) over Brussels' plan to cut market-distorting farm aid, with a major charity saying the meeting is doomed to fail.
The cuts were proposed by trade commissioner Peter Mandelson last week with a view to WTO talks in December, but sparked fierce criticism from a French-led group of member states and the farmer's lobby.
The French side (including Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland and Hungary) says Mr Mandelson did not consult properly with national governments and could put EU farmers out of business.
But Brussels, together with Scandinavian countries and the tacit support of the UK presidency, says it has acted within its mandate and in line with free market principles.
Meanwhile, Oxfam has warned that the two sides are going to Luxembourg not prepared to give an inch.
"Some EU states are insisting on red lines over which they will not cross", the international charity's trade campaigner Celine Charveriat indicated.
"But Europe must realize that poor countries have their own "red lines" and will fight to ensure that their people are not harmed by a bad deal", she added.
Both sides set out stall
However, European farmers oppose the move announced by the commission.
"The EU has already put an offer on the table which is so substantial that it risks putting family farms out of business", their Brussels-based lobby COPA-COGECA has argued over the past few days, pointing to the previous cuts in farm funds agreed at EU level.
But Mr Mandelson's team believes his initiative is based exactly on the reform of common agriculture policy agreed already in 2003, and so should not come as a surprise to anybody.
"We have not proposed a reduction in funding for agriculture, but a reform in the way the money assigned for farming is spent", Mr Mandelson's spokesman explained, saying cash will be shifted from the most market-distorting areas to less disruptive types of aid, giving the EU a strong bargaining position at the WTO meeting in Hong Kong.
The UK presidency will "act like a chairman of the talks, who is interested in getting an agreement", its spokesman told EUobserver.
But he added that "Britain's national position is well-known - as of a country supporting liberalisation of world trade, and that will have its impact too".
Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will also debate the issue with US president George W Bush on a visit to Washington on Tuesday.
But Oxfam says the success of the WTO talks will hinge on the outcome in Luxembourg instead.