European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said on Thursday that the EU is willing to negotiate the potential elimination of export subsidies for all agricultural commodities.
The EU's refusal to embrace the goal of getting rid of all farm export subsidies by a certain date has been a major obstacle to progress in world trade talks.
Its compromise offer to eliminate export subsidies on commodities of special interest to developing countries has been largely ignored by other World Trade Organisation members, who have continued to push for blanket elimination.
In a speech to the European-American Business Council, Lamy bemoaned the fact that no developing countries had yet come forward with a list of commodity export subsidies they would like to see eliminated.
"It is as if countries fear there is a trap here: as if countries are hooked on the media's standard view that the Europeans always have a secret agenda on agriculture, usually involving sugar. Well, we don't. We don't propose any a priori exclusions," Lamy said.
"And to take sugar again, the only question is perhaps the timeframe because clearly we can't eliminate immediately until our internal reform has worked its magic," he added.
The other major factor in negotiations on eliminating export subsidies is the willingness of others to "be ready to take equally comprehensive commitments on their own export support programmes," Lamy said.
$200 MILLION SANCTIONS ON US: Lamy said the EU would impose $ 200 million in economic sanctions on the United States beginning on Monday because of Congress' failure to repeal tax breaks declared illegal by the WTO.
"The picture is now quite clear. Countermeasures will go into effect by next Monday," he told the European American Business Council after meeting with the chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee.
The retaliation will hit a wide array of agricultural and manufactured goods ranging from buckwheat to nuclear reactor parts. Lamy said the sanctions would remain in effect until Congress passes legislation to repeal the tax breaks.
The EU trade commissioner said it remained unclear how long it would take Congress to do that but he said "the sooner, the better" for US-EU business relations.
The sanctions begin with a 5 percent duty on more than $ 4 billion worth of US exports to Europe. That duty will increase by 1 percentage point each month up to a cap of 17 percent. However, Lamy said the sanctions will be dropped "the day Congress passes the new legislation" to repeal the tax breaks.