WASHINGTON, Feb 19: President George W. Bush said on Saturday he would emphasize his call for Europeans to reduce trade barriers on farm goods during an upcoming trip to Europe.

"I will work with our European partners to open markets and expand opportunities for our businesses, our workers and farmers, and to advance the Doha Round of trade talks," Bush said in his weekly radio address, a day before he was to leave for a trip to Brussels, Germany and Slovakia.

"I will make clear that one of my top priorities is to reduce the remaining European barriers to US agricultural goods," he said. Under current trade rules, the EU is allowed to use subsidies to boost exports of farm goods. But in the Doha Round talks of the World Trade Organization, the European Union agreed to eventually end those subsidies.

International farm subsidies are a central point of contention in those talks, named after the Qatari city where they were launched in 2001. The discussions are running well behind schedule.

Europeans have responded to criticism of its farm export subsidies by highlighting big increases in US domestic subsidies for farmers. The United States counters that it will not unilaterally move to reduce subsidies, but is willing to cut them as part of broad deal.

Bush has proposed reducing farm subsidies in his latest budget but the idea has received a cool reception from some lawmakers in the Republican-led Congress. Bush's trip to Europe is aimed at mending trans-Atlantic ties that were frayed by the Iraq war. He will also visit German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Mainz, Germany, and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bratislava. -Reuters