The European Union's new offer to cut farm tariffs provides a solution for world trade talks, Europe's trade chief said on Saturday, but the proposal failed to impress the bloc's international trading partners.
Australia joined the United States and Brazil in demanding more concessions, while Africans said the offer fell short of what was needed to break a deadlock in the negotiations.
European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said Friday's EU offer went much further than the bloc had previously been willing to go.
"Europe's offer provides a middle ground around which WTO members should converge," Mandelson wrote in the International Herald Tribune in an article entitled "Europe's final offer".
"Our move will drive down agricultural tariffs across the board. It is a bold offer. It is also Europe's bottom line, because we have to respect our responsibilities to European farmers," he added.
Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile said the EU's offer to cut its average tariff on agricultural imports by almost half to just over 12 percent was well below the demands of the United States, Australia, Brazil and other big food producers.
They want average cuts by the EU of at least 54 percent, and rejected a previous offer they said meant average cuts of under 25 percent.
But Vaile told Reuters in an interview on Saturday he still hoped a new world trade deal could be reached.
"I'm not as optimistic as I was, but it's not all over. The parties are still talking," Vaile said.
"Our expectations are that that (EU tariff cut) figure needs to be well above 54 percent. It's a positive move in the right direction but still not enough."
TRADE BLUEPRINT Vaile still hoped the Doha Round of trade talks would go ahead at a meeting of the WTO's 148 members in Hong Kong in December, when members hope to agree on a blueprint for a global trade deal.
"I think their level of ambition is very low," Lesotho Trade Minister Mpho Malie, an influential figure in global trade talks, said of the new EU proposal.
"I don't think there is anything that is ever final in a negotiation before agreements are signed so it would be strange for the EU to say 'that is it'," Malie told Reuters in a telephone interview.
He said he expected the EU to show it was truly committed to lifting struggling African economies by removing bad trade practices and farm subsidies that hurt the continent.
The EU's executive Commission has been caught between demands for more concessions by big trading partners and French opposition to weakening protection for farmers.
French President Jacques Chirac said on Thursday Paris might veto the deal if Brussels went any further.
Mandelson said in his article the trade talks also had to focus on non-farm issues, such as trade in industrial goods and services.
"The EU insists that there now be immediate and tangible progress in those areas. This is not an agriculture-only round. It is time for others to step up to the plate," he said.
Mandelson said the tariff cuts advocated by the United States would have disastrous consequences for developing countries whose preferential access to European markets would effectively be eliminated.
Vaile said negotiations would continue to close the gap with the US proposal for average tariff cuts of 75 percent. Much would depend on a video conference between ministers from Europe, the United States, Brazil, India and Australia next week.
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