EU ‘fails to get farm policy reforms message across’ at trade talks
Farm ministers from the enlarged 25 member States will be given that blunt message by Agriculture and Food Minister Joe Walsh at today’s informal EU Agricultural Council meeting in Killarney, Co Kerry.
The EU has come under constant attack at the WTO from developing countries over its support for agriculture and is also subject to increasing demands for greater market access for their products. But the EU says it has carried out sweeping reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy over the past decade and is also the world’s largest importer of agricultural products from developing countries.
A working paper which Mr Walsh will present to his colleagues today in his capacity as the current Agricultural Council president calls for greater communication by the EU. It claims that the increasing demands on the EU at the world trade talks suggest a failure to bring home to its WTO partners the significance of the reforms of its domestic support arrangements and the value, or potential value, of the trade concessions that it has made.
Mr Walsh’s paper states that the fact that the EU is still under pressure in the world trade talks is difficult to understand in the light of the sweeping reforms described.
“It would seem that greater efforts towards better communication are needed as to what benefits CAP reform really involves for international agricultural trade. If the EU does not succeed in this, there is a danger that the future of the EU’s agricultural policy will be determined, not by the Council of Ministers but by external forces, as WTO partners continue to demand further changes from the EU. We have to analyse why this situation has come about and consider how it can be addressed,” the paper states. The EU has also developed its agricultural trade policy to provide preferential access to developing country exporters under a variety of schemes.
