WTO five to seek talks breakthrough

FIVE of the biggest players in the world trade talks - the United States, the European Union, Brazil, India and Japan - will meet in London today.

This will be the latest attempt to break the logjam in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations.

That gathering of trade powers at the Indian Embassy will be followed by a wider meeting hosted by WTO director-general Pascal Lamy in Geneva tomorrow and possibly running into Wednesday.

Mr Lamy, who will also attend the London session, wants to draw up a first blueprint for the draft pact by mid-November because ministers not present in Geneva need time to study it.

Farm supports will be central to salvaging the talks and averting a collapse in the process when the 145 member states of the WTO meet at a ministerial conference in Hong Kong in December.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has conditionally offered to reduce average tariffs on agricultural imports by 46% to just over 12% in a bid to secure a deal in the talks.

But the US and other countries claim the offer has not gone far enough, while there are sharp claims in France and Ireland that the proposals have gone too far and exceed the negotiating mandate given by EU member states.

The umbrella body for Europe’s farm lobby, COPA, described the EU offer as wrong and irresponsible and said it should be rejected.

Rudolf Schwarzbock, COPA president, said the proposal comes at the wrong time, jeopardises the EU’s current agricultural policy and goes beyond the negotiating mandate.

Irish Farmers Association (IFA) president John Dillon said the cuts proposed have the potential to wreak havoc on the two major farming enterprises in Ireland through low-price imports. The concessions point to an e800 million income loss for Irish farmers or a 35% cut in farm incomes.

He said it is time for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to come out strongly against the offer and back the French president Jacques Chirac in his strong defence of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

“Commissioner Mandelson is obviously hell-bent on selling out agriculture in order to do a WTO deal at any cost,” said Mr Dillon, calling on farmers to come out in force and strongly support an IFA national WTO protest outside the EU offices in Dublin tomorrow.

However, Oxfam said the latest EU offer on agriculture appears to give some hope to unblock world trade talks.