PARIS: French opposition to reform the European common agricultural policy is at the bottom of the difficulties the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is expected to face in Hong Kong this week.

The French refusal to agree a cut in European subsidies for agriculture within the common agricultural policy (CAP) will also be at the core of EU talks this week on a long-term budget.

Despite several ‘reforms’ of CAP, French farmers continue to receive about a fifth of more than 52 billion dollars in subsidies the EU pays out every year. These subsidies add up to about 40 per cent of the EU budget.

Trade ministers aim to reach agreement in Hong Kong on liberalisation of international trade in agriculture, non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services. But the success of the conference depends on the readiness of the richest countries, especially EU members and the United States, to reduce subsidies to their farmers, and to open their markets for agricultural products and services from developing countries.

Despite pressure from other European countries, especially Britain, French leaders have repeated in recent days that they will not accept either a reduction in European subsidies for French farmers, or drastic reduction of tariffs on agricultural products from abroad.

“CAP is a strategic European policy, and its importance goes beyond the agricultural domain,” French Minister for Agriculture Dominique Bussereau wrote in an editorial comment in the French financial newspaper Les Echos last week.

“Some CAP critics pretend that the French defence of it is a purely electoral scheme, and that the aid for farmers is unfair and iniquitous. This opinion is wrong,” he said. “France will be attentive that...the conference’s final result be completely compatible with CAP.”

Bussereau said at a press conference that France will also shun concessions proposed by European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson has proposed a 70 per cent cut in European subsidies and the halving of the present European tariffs on import of agricultural goods from 22.8 to 12.2 per cent.

French leaders have been trying meanwhile to divert attention to concessions not offered by others. At the French-African summit in Mali Dec. 3 and 4, French President Jacques Chirac urged the US government to eliminate all its subsidies to US cotton producers.

French commentators are backing their leaders with arguments to oppose any reform of agricultural markets.

“The WTO proposals are the most counterproductive in the agricultural domain,” Gérard Le Puill, trade expert with the leftist newspaper L’Humanité, said.

A similar argument was developed by Le Monde economics expert Éric Le Boucher. After describing the French defence of subsidies for farmers as “tense”, Le Boucher wrote that agricultural protectionism is justifiable. —Dawn/IPS News Service