African trade ministers warned trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt yesterday that the price of a successful conclusion to the new round of global trade talks will be further cuts to Europe’s farm subsidies.
Agriculture ministers agreed last month in Luxembourg to break the link between subsidies and farm output to trim the surplus produce Europe dumps in poor countries, bankrupting local farmers.
But trade ministers from Africa and the developing world meeting in London dismissed the deal as a fudge which leaves the worst excesses of the â,¬40-billion ($45-billion) programme untouched.
”The package that came out of Luxembourg was unsatisfactory from the point of view of developing countries,” said Jose Alfredo Grace Lima, Brazil’s ambassador to the EU.
Hewitt told the meeting last month’s deal on the common agricultural policy was a ”a real breakthrough” for the negotiations. ”The deal agreed by the EU 10 days ago was an excellent response, underlining our commitment to reforming the CAP,” she said.
But Kenya’s trade and industry minister, Mukhisa Kituyi, said he was pessimistic about the chances of Europe’s CAP reforms helping farmers in the developing world.
After stiff opposition from the French, agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler was forced to abandon cuts to Europe’s guaranteed prices which would have allowed the EU to open its markets to developing world produce.
Trade analysts worry that, without concessions from Europe on market access and cutting export subsidies, the WTO’s meeting in Cancun this September could turn into a repeat of the disastrous encounter in Seattle three years ago.
David Spencer, Australia’s ambassador in Geneva, warned if talks in Cancun collapsed there was a danger that Europe and the US might walk away from the organisation.
”There is a real possibility the EU and the US have a plan B. They will carve up the world into a series of free trade agreements and let the multilateral system wither,” he said
Trade justice campaigners demonstrating outside the meeting urged developing countries to resist Europe’s demands for a new global investment treaty in exchange for reforming the CAP. – Guardian Unlimited Â