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Europe adopts hardline stance on CAP cuts
(Monday, July 21, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Charlotte Denny, The Guardian: The European Union will today raise the stakes in vital global trade talks
when it adopts a hardline negotiating stance for September's World Trade
Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico.
Pascal Lamy, Europe's top trade negotiator, will insist on new talks about
opening up developing countries to foreign investors as the price of making
any cuts to Europe's $40bn (£25bn) farm subsidies, according to a secret
report leaked to the Guardian.
MPs on the international development committee warned last week that Europe
could turn Cancun into a repeat of the WTO's disastrous Seattle meeting if
it insisted on putting foreign investment on the agenda against the wishes
of most developing countries.
The draft document that spells out Europe's strategy for Cancun was approved
last week by top EU trade officials and will be rubber-stamped today by
ministers. Although EU farm ministers agreed in principle last month to
reform the common agricultural policy, the document says no changes will be
made unless other countries make concessions to Europe's demands for less
radical cuts to agricultural tariffs.
"It's total brinkmanship. The EU is saying, 'it's our way or the highway',"
said Rachel Thompson, a trade analyst with consultancy Apco.
Europe's tactics are likely to infuriate other WTO members who had hoped
last month's reforms were a sign that Europe was committed to real cuts.
Brussels pays the biggest farm subsidies in the world, encouraging Europe's
inefficient farmers to produce mountains of unwanted food that is dumped in
the developing world, hitting local farmers.
With less than two months to go before the Cancun meeting, WTO negotiators
face an enormous task in bridging differences on thorny issues such as
agriculture, access to cheap medicines and investment. The talks that began
nearly two years ago in Doha are supposed to be wrapped up by the end of
2004.
"If the EU position doesn't change, I would say there is a fifty-fifty
chance that Cancun will be total failure," said Ms Thompson.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1002216,00.html
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