Summary: August 13, 2003: WTO: basic agreement reached between the EU-USA on agriculture (Geneva)
The European Union and the United States have reached a basic agreement on the proposals to reform the agricultural policy in negotiations underway at the World Trade Organisation. It is "a general policy agreement, the details of which must still be defined", explain commercial sources.
A spokesman for the EU Commission has confirmed the framework agreement between the EU and USA on the liberalisation of agriculture in view of the WTO summit in Cancun in September.
Criticised for the level at which they protect agriculture, the EU and USA declared in Montreal on 30th July last their intention of presenting a joint proposal to reduce agricultural subsidies and to open up the markets.
The joint proposal should be presented to the other 144 member Countries of the WTO, today, Wednesday, in Geneva.
The agricultural dossier is the most thorny of those launched during the WTO round in Doha in 2001 and, at this half-way stage, in Cancun, its progress will be under examination.
For months the negotiation has been stuck on the question of the reduction of the internal support rich Countries give their own farmers, and also on the subsidies that are granted for exports, which developing Countries maintain seriously damage the production and trade of poor Countries.
Meanwhile, from Brussels, the EU Commission has announced that the EU, USA and Canada have produced a joint proposal concerning the reduction of duties on industrial products that anticipates that WTO members will reach an agreement in the negotiations on "a single mathematical formula" for all sectors "with the aim of obtaining a significant decrease in duties and to reduce the difference" between the customs duties of the various Countries.
The joint proposal envisages "measures aimed at granting developing Countries special and differentiated treatment, and a certain flexibility in managing customs duties according to economic needs".
In particular, it would establish a "system of credits that would allow developing Countries to reduce customs duties to a lesser extent than developed Countries, if their economic situation justifies it".
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