Draft agreement on agriculture cuts
The common position was hammered out at the request of the WTO to help facilitate the talks on agriculture, which have emerged as the biggest stumbling block towards progress on a deal to open up global trade by 2005.
"This is not a detailed text, this is a framework text with a little detail in it," said EU spokesman Eric Mamer.
He stressed that the text was "clearly not" a "fixed deal," but a framework for future negotiations.
"What the WTO asked the United States and the European Union to do was to come forward with a proposal, a sort of common vision of where things would be going," he said.
"It's elements in which we agree. We are at the beginning of a process, not at the end."
He said the text, agreed to by negotiators from Brussels and Washington during intensive talks in Geneva this week, was being reviewed in the 15 EU capitals before its presentation tonight to the other WTO members.
"It's not a question of take it or leave it, but you've got to start somewhere in these things."
Agriculture has been the main stumbling block in preparations for the WTO meeting in Mexico next month.
Developing countries, backed by big exporters like the United States and Australia, have been calling for major cuts in farm subsidies and import tariffs which keep their products out of other markets.
However, less competitive producers and importers, like the EU and Japan, say they need some of these measures to support their own farmers and protect rural communities.
Possibly the biggest problem facing agriculture negotiators is finding a formula for cutting import tariffs, which are traditionally much higher on farm goods than on manufactured products.
Washington suggested that no tariff should exceed 25%, but the EU wants to see tariffs cut by a percentage.
It has proposed trimming them by 36% which would be a smaller cut overall meaning some products could still have very high protection.
