600,000 EU meat jobs on line in WTO talks
Farmers, feed manufacturers, traders and slaughterers would all be affected, and the EU Commission had so far failed to win anything in return in the area of services and industrial goods, pointed out the group.
European farmers and meat producers cannot reduce their production costs as much as competitors abroad, who do not have to meet all our high productions standards, said a European Meat Platform spokesman.
High standards in areas like food safety, traceability and environmental sustainability, add e6.8bn to EU meat production costs, said the spokesperson.
The WTO move would bring imports from parts of the world where avian influenza and foot-and-mouth disease are prevalent, which would threaten EU food dependency and food security, according to the Meat Platform.
Meanwhile, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said he doesn’t plan to offer further cuts in farm tariffs ahead of the December 13 global trade meeting in Hong Kong.
But intense pressure is coming from his former boss, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
He said, “Agricultural protection, tariffs, sensitive products, on all counts we must go further if the WTO is to succeed.”
At the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) annual conference, he also said Britain’s EU rebate would only be given up if there was fundamental reform of the CAP.
The influential CBI backed him, with its president, John Sunderland, launching an attack on what he called the “irrelevant” farm lobby, for blocking WTO negotiations.
“We are witnessing again the historic struggle between free trade and protectionism, and history sadly repeating itself, with landed interests once again at the forefront of protection,” he said. “Why are some political leaders so frightened of this increasingly irrelevant minority whose subsidies we all pay for? The voice of business should be heard more clearly in support of free trade.”
