European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson promised flexibility in farm talks on Wednesday but told other negotiators Europe needed urgently to see benefits for its services and goods industries from a global trade pact.
A day after warding off a French attempt to limit his negotiating room, the EU Trade Commissioner said he would not be going empty-handed into talks with four other leading World Trade Organisation (WTO) members that could be crucial to meeting an end-year deadline for a global trade deal.
"The EU will show some further flexibility, indicating how we want to move forward on agriculture," said Mandelson, who is under heavy pressure from Europe's trading partners to ease access to the bloc's lucrative farm market.
"But I must say honestly to my colleagues: Europe urgently needs to start seeing more clearly the benefits the (WTO's) Doha Round will offer in trade in industrial goods and services," he added in a statement.
Key WTO members the United States, the EU, Brazil, India and Australia will try to bridge differences, notably on farm reform, that are blocking progress two months before ministers from all 148 WTO states must approve a draft treaty in Hong Kong.
But in answer to Mandelson, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim of Brazil, which heads the G20 developing country alliance, said agriculture came first and until there was clear progress there it would be futile to try to negotiate seriously on other issues.
"Agriculture is the engine of the (WTO trade) round and the engine is not yet moving ... We cannot hope to go into other areas ... before we are sure of the amount of progress (there)," he told journalists ahead of the talks.
The United States seized the initiative last week with an offer to cut its lavish farm subsidies. It is demanding that the EU match it by agreeing to throw open its lucrative agricultural market to imports.
Mandelson said on Wednesday that the EU, for its part, wanted clarification on another aspect of the farm talks - how to deal with "sensitive products" that are protected the most.
"Until then we can't determine what the increase in market access will be," he told Reuters.
France and other EU farming states say Mandelson has already given away too much.
Although the ministers rejected a French call to give EU states a veto over negotiating initiatives, France warned him it would still scrutinise his every move. "It is a clear warning from a sizeable number of states that they are getting worried," said one EU diplomat on Tuesday.
Failure at Hong Kong could doom the trade round, which aims to boost the world economy and lift millions out of poverty.
The EU has offered to cut its highest farm tariffs by up to half, but critics say this will lead to little in the way of new business opportunities for major exporters such as the United States, Brazil and Australia.
But the United States, whose offer on subsidies seemed to catch the EU off guard, is also likely to face tough questioning from those - the EU included - who say it is not enough.
Despite the big-sounding numbers - Washington has offered to cut its right to subsidise by 60 percent - critics say real spending could be left unchanged.
India and other leading developing countries say they will not agree to lower their tariffs, one of the United States' key goals, unless they can be sure that the farm goods they would import are not subsidised.