EU wil export subsidies op landbouw afschaffen

quote:

World trade ministers meeting in Paris
May 14, 2004, 06:27

The world's trade ministers are meeting in Paris, France, under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developement (OECD). Top of their agenda is to re-start the stalled world trade talks. Developing countries want their industrialised counterparts to eliminate market-distorting agricultural subsidies for fair global trade. The Paris meeting is of particular interest in light of the European Union's recent offer to cut all export subsidies conditionally.

It is not an official World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting, but it is regarded as another attempt to kick-start the stalled trade talks. Last year's high-level ministerial meeting of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico, ended without any real outcome. Developing and industrialised countries were at loggerheads on what issues should be prioritised.

Rashid Kaukab, the director of the Trade and Development Unit at the South Centre in Switzerland, says: "Since many of the OECD members are also members of the WTO, on the sidelines of the OECD meeting, there will be a meeting of about 30 ministers, some are not OECD members but are WTO members and they will be meeting to talk about the WTO and the Doha agenda."

The South Centre is an inter-governmental organisation that supports developing countries during negotiations at the WTO. At the Doha round in Qatar three years ago, agriculture was identified as key to the developmental needs of poorer countries. Developing countries want industrialised nations like the European Union, the US, Canada and Japan to drop their protective farming subsidies and to end their unfair market dominance.

EU offers to cut subsidies
The European Union has offered to cut all its subsidies on condition that the US and other northern countries do the same. Kaukab, nevertheless, questions the viability of this offer when a consensus is needed to clinch the deal.

bi]"How real is this offer - because there is quite an interesting use of language for example, it mentions things like if others do the same. We don't know the reaction of the US and Japan. It is not only subsidies but it is also linked to the progress on some issues in other negotiating areas and of course we don't know what is going to happen in those areas. There are quite a few grey areas and in the absence of clarity on that, it is not absolutely clear that this is what the European Commission is going to do," Kaukab says.[/b]

In an SABC TV interview, Iqbal Sharma, the chief director for Bilateral Programmes at the department of trade and industry, says the European Union's subsidy offer should be read in the context of its 10 new member countries.

"Although the 10 accession countries are all at very low levels of development, one could call them developing countries and they previously would have shared the concerns of the developing world. That has shifted, their future now lies with the EU and they'll vote with that block. And that block's voice has been strengthened by another 10," Sharma explains.

IMF addresses issue of agricultural trade
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has tried to illustrate why agricultural trade is crucial for developing countries. It says 96% of the world's farmers live in developing countries. Farming subsidies cost them $20 billion a year directly and up to $100 billion indirectly.

Sharma says developing countries are caught in the middle of a protectionist game, especially between the US and the European Union. 'In the multilateral arena, subsidies on the US side and the EU side are basically a cat and mouse game. And either side is waiting for one to blink. In the meantime the developing world is suffering."

At last year's failed Cancun ministerial meeting, South Africa, Brazil and India led the Group of 20 major developing countries in opposing an agricultural proposal by the European Union and the US. At the current Paris meeting, Robert Zoellick, an American trade representative, has been quoted as saying that the negotiations are moving closer towards a package that will make deep cuts in other trade-distorting subsidies. He has also urged the so-called G-20 countries to make some concessions so that a compromise can be reached.

Meanwhile, the trade and industry department says that because of the sensitivity of the Paris talks, its negotiators will only speak to the local media when they get home next week.
bron

quote:

Op dinsdag 20 juli 2004 00:20 schreef zakjapannertje het volgende:

[..]

http://www.telegraaf.nl/b(...)ing_suikerteelt.html
[..]

helaas niet onverwacht, met de boeren moet een fatsoenlijke regeling getroffen worden en zo snel als mogelijk moeten de gewone landbouwsubsidies drastisch teruggedrongen worden,

quote:

EU puts final touches to WTO talks stance

26 July 2004

European Union (EU) foreign ministers met Monday to finalize their negotiating position at crunch World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks which open in Geneva this week.

Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said the EU has to take a firm and united stand at the WTO talks starting Tuesday, and downplayed tensions notably over farm subsidies, where France does not want to give any more ground.

"I think we will get a good mandate for the Commission and we have see to it that all member states of course are on the same line," said, referring to the European Commission which will represent the EU in Geneva.

He added that he had "high hopes" all EU states would agree on agricultural subsidies.

The WTO negotiations starting Tuesday, the first since the breakdown of talks in Cancun in Mexico last September, is seen as crucial ahead of changes of administration in both Europe and the United States later this year.

Failure to reach a deal in the so-called Doha round of talks could lead to a stalemate in the talks that could last for years, WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi has warned.

The EU will be represented in Geneva by Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, one of the two French commissioners.

The Commission, the EU's executive arm, welcomed a new draft compromise as "a basis for further work" when the head of the WTO's general council, Japanese ambassador Shotaro Oshima, presented it in mid-July.

But France disagrees with the commission on the issue of farm subsidies. France has complained that the Oshima compromise "is deeply unbalanced to the disadvantage of the EU."

The Commission points out that the latest WTO plan makes room, for example, for market access for certain sensitive products for developed countries. It also takes up the demand by Brussels for equivalent treatment for export subsidies, which are largely used by the EU, and other mechanisms of support such as food aid, which the US commonly uses.

Responding to the concerns of Raffarin and France's powerful farming lobby, European Commission head Romano Prodi said France was also mistaken about the negotiating timetable because the talks next week are aimed at defining a framework for more conclusive talks and are not the conclusions themselves, which will depend on the balance of compromises to come.

French opposition to the EU making concessions on agriculture in WTO talks and the strife that causes in the EU are not new and were already present during the last so-called Uruguay round of multilateral negotiations.

The Oshima plan calls for an end to subsidies to farm exports but does not call for parallel action by the chief exporters, among them the United States.

...

quote:

The text released by chief negotiator Shotaro Oshima on Friday notably advocated talks on the elimination of export subsidies in agriculture, a key demand of developing countries that the EU and US had resisted until they recently eased their positions.

Oshima's proposals also covered farm export credits, cuts in tariff barriers, a reduced agenda for non-agricultural talks, and some exemptions for the world's poorest countries.

quote:

Concessions by U.S. and EU revive trade talks

GENEVA Working into Thursday morning, five key players - including the United States and the European Union - reached an informal agreement on agriculture that has put global trade talks here back on track.
.
With only two days remaining, delegates and officials said that the United States in particular had made significant new concessions on Wednesday night, inspiring cautious optimism that the negotiations will lead to an agreement and advance the Doha round of trade talks for the developing nations.
.
"I think it looks good," said Arancha Gonzแlez, spokeswoman for Pascal Lamy, the top trade official for the European Union.
.
While officials were reluctant to describe details of the discussions or even describe them as an agreement, they did say that the United States seemed willing to put off some of its more contentious demands on agricultural subsidies and, instead, offer to make specific cuts in other areas.
.
Agriculture has been the key to this round of talks, which the World Bank has said could add $3 trillion in new benefits to the global marketplace. But attempts to reach an agreement last year in Canc๚n, Mexico, ended in failure.
.
Rich countries were accused of catering to their largest commercial farmers, who receive $300 billion in subsidies and support every year, to the detriment of farmers in poor countries who cannot compete against the flood of the subsidized commodities.
.
However, in talks held on Wednesday, the European Union's offer of eliminating all of its export subsidies was matched by an American proposal that was described as a cut in domestic subsidies during the first year of a new trade accord, according to trade officials close to the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
.
If that holds, the likelihood of an agreement improves, particularly because it could satisfy the poor West African nations that have been demanding that Washington end the heavy subsidization of cotton.
.
Richard Mills, the spokesman for Robert Zoellick, the U.S. trade representative, refused to comment on specific details of the talks but said they were "very useful."
.
"We're being realistic," he said after the talks lasted until nearly 2 a.m. on Thursday. "We're not pessimistic, and we're not optimistic."
.
Australia, Brazil and India were the other three countries meeting with the United States and the European Union in a group known as the Five Interested Parties, who together represent the key factions that must agree if the entire 147-member World Trade Organization is to reach an accord this week.
.
Now, top officials at the WTO here must assemble the compromises suggested by this group and a handful of other blocs representing the richest and the poorest farmers of the world and publish a new text of an accord. Officials were expecting that text late Thursday afternoon.
.
While most delegates met behind closed doors, several African officials held a news briefing on Wednesday and singled out the United States as a barrier to a new trade accord because of its cotton subsidies.
.
"Thousands and thousands of small farmers are being destroyed, their families going hungry because of the unfair subsidies of American cotton," said Ousmane Ngom, Senegal's minister of trade and a representative of one of the four African nations that have pressed for emergency relief from what they call unfair trading practices on cotton.
.
For its part, the United States has offered some development assistance from existing aid programs for the African nations. But it has been reluctant to single out cotton for deeper subsidy cuts than other basic commodity programs, which include corn, wheat, soybeans and rice, to avoid an unsettling precedent.
.
The African ministers agreed to put cotton back into the overall agriculture talks but called the press conference to warn they had reached their "bottom line" and were waiting for a response from Zoellick and the American delegation.
.
Later on Wednesday night, at least 27 countries registered their complaints that the group of five countries negotiating behind closed doors was being accorded too great a role in the talks. China, Malaysia, Chile and Japan were among the countries voicing concern.
.
China and Chile are powerful members of the Group of 20 developing nations that was formed in Canc๚n last year to push the wealthy nations to cut their agricultural supports. Japan, which puts a 490 percent tariff on rice, is an outspoken member of the Group of 10 wealthy countries that also includes Norway and Switzerland. They have asked for continued protection on what they call sensitive products, a proposition that has been criticized by developing nations.
.
Phil Bloomer, the director of Oxfam International's Make Trade Fair Campaign, which has targeted European and American farm subsidies, said the United States had to make a new, serious concession immediately.
.
"The European Union has said it will eliminate export subsidies and give an end date," Bloomer said.
.
"The West African nations made the concession of putting cotton inside agricultural talks. Now it's up to the United States to make a similar concession."
.
The New York Times