BRUSSELS, Sept 10: Europe’s trade and farm chiefs will next week urge the United States to match European Union reforms on farm spending to help pave the way for global trade talks later this year, the European Commission said on Friday.
Europe’s trade and agriculture commissioners Peter Mandelson and Mariann Fischer Boel are due to be in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday for talks with US Trade Representative Rob Portman and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.
Both sides have said they want to find a common agenda for World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Hong Kong in December.
The European side will hope to gain an understanding by the US government of the reforms underway in the Common Agricultural Policy, Mandelson’s spokesman Peter Power said.
They will discuss with the American side the scope for comparable changes in US farm policy and spending.
Washington has argued that even with reforms, the EU still outspends the United States on agricultural subsidies.
Power said there might not be immediate agreement on how to feed those reforms into the (WTO) negotiations. But progress is urgently needed and the meetings next week should hopefully achieve this.
Portman said on Thursday it was time to jump-start talks ahead of the Hong Kong meeting and he hoped the United States and European Union could make headway on agriculture next week.
He also said it was unclear if the two sides would find a common agenda in those bilateral talks.
The WTO talks to free up global trade should have ended in 2004 but have fallen even further behind over the past year amid differences on how to cut farm subsidies and tariffs.
Talks on opening new markets for industrial goods and services have made little progress.
Mandelson’s spokesman declined to say whether a high-profile dispute over alleged subsidies for aviation industries on both sides of the Atlantic would be discussed next week.
The United States and the EU resumed complaints against one another at the WTO in July, alleging illegal aid for Europe’s Airbus and for US plane-maker Boeing after efforts to reach a negotiated settlement failed.
Portman said on Thursday the United States was “keeping the door open to talk” in order to resolve the dispute.
Separately next week, EU and US officials are expected to initial the first part of a two-phase agreement on wine trade, effectively ending a 20-year deadlock on mutual recognition of different wine-making practices.
But the most sensitive part of the deal, on the extent to which US winemakers may use EU-protected names like sherry, port and champagne on their products, will be left for the next phase — probably in another couple of years.—Reuters
