Mandelson hopeful of grinding out farming deal

By Stewart Fleming

Date: 13/10/05

EU officials are hoping for further progress in a key area of the Doha Development Agenda trade talks next week when trade ministers from the so-called Five Interested Parties (FIPS) group convene for a marathon negotiation in Geneva.

Following three days of high-level negotiations in Zurich and Geneva this week, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson struck a guarded but hopeful tone on the vital area of agricultural trade.

"While we have moved from stand-off, we have not yet achieved trade- off," said Mandelson on Wednesday (12 October).

It is widely accepted that without an agreement on agriculture, developing countries will not be prepared to move towards a new global trade liberalisation round covering services and industrial goods.

Top officials and ministers from the FIPS group, which comprises Australia, Brazil, the EU, India and the US, are to meet again in Geneva next week (19-20 October).

There are hopes that they might be able to prepare a framework agreement on market access for agricultural products, which they could put forward for negotiation.

The market access talks deal with the tariffs that would be levied on imports if a comprehensive trade agreement were achieved.

Commenting on other key elements of the agricultural trade negotiations, Mandelson said: "We have welcomed US proposals on domestic subsidies; that pillar is looking better than it did at the start of the week." The third pillar, of export competition, "is only in the bag when others offer definitive commitments on state trading enterprises, export credits and food aid", he added.

Privately trade officials said that the meetings in Geneva and Zurich this week have made limited but, they insisted, significant progress on the road to a new trade round.

"What has been important about this week's talks," one said, "is that we are seeing not only top level political involvement in the Doha trade talks, but in addition, in the vital negotiations on agricultural trade, the major players, in particular the EU and the United States, have been prepared to put forward new proposals with specific indicative numbers in them."

This week's meetings have involved not only negotiations among key players such as Mandelson, Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel and US Trade Representative Rob Portman, but also gatherings of ministers representing groups of nations such as the FIPS, the Group of 20 emerging market countries including China and the Group of ten countries including Switzerland and Japan, who are seen as being most protectionist on agricultural trade issues.

Today (13 October), the World Trade Organization's trade negotiations committee, which includes all 148 members, is to convene in Geneva for what is being described as a major stocktaking.

Pacal Lamy, the WTO's director-general, is to give at the end of the session his assessment of the way forward towards the ministerial meeting scheduled for Hong Kong in December.

Article features comments by the European Commissioner for Trade, Peter Mandelson ahead of a meeting of top officials and ministers from the FIPS group, comprising Australia, Brazil, the EU, India and the US, in Geneva on 19-20 October 2005. It was expected that the group might be able to prepare a framework agreement on market access for agricultural products, which they could put forward for negotiation at the WTO's Ministerial in Hong Kong, December 2005.