Push to clinch farm deal with EU applicants

Date: 30/03/2000

By Simon Taylor

EUROPEAN Commission agriculture officials will meet their Polish counterparts in Brussels next week to try to clear the final hurdles to a ground-breaking farm-trade deal with the leading applicant countries.

Commission officials say they are optimistic about the chances of agreeing a deal under which all import duties and export subsidies on farm products would be phased out over the next few years, starting from 1 July this year. "The mood has definitely got better," said one.

But diplomats from the candidate countries warned that hard bargaining would be needed over a range of sensitive goods including cereals, dairy products and beef before an agreement could be reached.

Striking a deal to liberalise farm trade between the EU and the six front-runner candidate countries would remove a major source of tension ahead of difficult enlargement negotiations on agriculture due to start in June.

Disputes over farm issues have caused serious friction between the Union and Poland, which has two million farmers compared to the seven million in the entire EU.

Warsaw has attacked the Union's system of subsidising farm exports, arguing that it depresses prices for their farmers, and the Commission has criticised Warsaw for increasing import duties on agricultural products last year, accusing it of "inappropriate behaviour for an applicant country".

Although the free-trade agreement will apply to all six leading candidate countries, the Commission needs to strike a specific deal with Poland because of the size of its farm sector and the political sensitivity of its trade with the EU.

Hopes of a deal were raised this week after Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler said farmers in the applicant countries should receive support payments as compensation for limiting production, as the candidates have insisted.