EU ‘fails to get farm policy reforms message across’ at trade talks

THE European Union has failed to get the message across to its partners in the world trade talks that it has radically reformed its farm policy and is giving developing countries preferential access to its markets.

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.