EU agriculture ministers warned the bloc's trade chief on Monday not to make a new offer on cutting farm import tariffs to secure a wider World Trade Organisation deal, saying Europe had reached its limit.
Austrian Agriculture Minister Josef Proell said Europe had already put forward its proposals for the WTO's global trade round and should not be making another one, despite a looming deadline and the risk of further lengthy delays.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said this month the bloc could enhance its offer in the sensitive area of farm trade, on condition other key WTO players also make concessions.
"The agriculture ministers are of the opinion that Europe should not present a new offer but that our partners should make a new offer. We have made our offer and we won't change it," Proell said during an informal meeting of EU farm ministers.
Mandelson's spokesman Peter Power said on May 19 the EU could move closer to the demands of developing countries that want it to cut its farm import tariffs by an average of 54 percent, if other WTO members make concessions too.
The current EU offer works out at an average cut of around 39 percent.
France, the biggest single gainer from the EU's lavish farm subsidies, has repeatedly rejected suggestions that the bloc might make bigger cuts to its agricultural tariffs and President Jacques Chirac last week blamed Washington for the stalemate.
French Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau repeated that line to reporters on the sidelines of the ministers' meeting. A further EU concession on farm policy would jeopardise the entire Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), he said.
"The October 28 offer was already the limit for France," he said. "It is the United States that should move - and Mr Mandelson should stay within his mandate.
"I would prefer a failure than an agreement that would risk the Common Agricultural Policy and its future," he said.
Finnish Agriculture Minister Juha Korkeaoja agreed.
"Today is not the time for that (new farm offer). We have more or less reached the limit of where we can go," he said.
But WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has said the success of the round lies with the EU going further on agricultural market access as well as the United States cutting subsidies for its farmers by more than it has so far offered and big developing countries such as Brazil reducing industrial goods tariffs.
"On services and industrial goods, our partners do not move at all - above all ... the United States. It is difficult for the US to move at the moment but they have to do something," Proell said.
Washington's negotiating efforts have been hampered by a change in leadership after US Trade Representative Rob Portman was named budget director and the nomination of his deputy Susan Schwab to succeed him has yet to be approved by Congress.
"We do not want the (WTO's Doha) round to become a failure. We think it can still succeed," Proell said. "But it's a question of political credibility."
WTO member states are struggling to meet their end-July deadline to agree on the main elements of the round, launched in 2001 to boost the global economy and ease Third World poverty.
If talks go beyond the end of July, there is a risk they could stretch beyond the expiry in mid-2007 of the fast-track powers of US President George W. Bush to approve trade deals and subsequently be delayed by several years.
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