Minister for Agriculture and Food Mary Coughlan will today outline Ireland's bottom line in the WTO negotiations to the EU commissioner for trade, Peter Mandelson.

In a statement issued last night in Brussels, the Minister said that to achieve an acceptable outcome for Irish agriculture there must be no further cuts in tariffs or in the thresholds, since they would further damage the agri-food sector.

She added that non-EU countries did not understand or recognise the difficulties encountered by farmers in the transition to market-orientated agriculture.

"The negotiating partners continue to make unrealistic demands on the EU. Despite the real and substantive offers to reduce supports and to improve market access, the EU remained isolated in Hong Kong and under pressure to concede further," read the statement.

Her statement also outlined Ireland's position and said its approach was determined by the need to export up to 90 per cent of production, the difficulty of competing in EU and third-country markets with greater scale, lower cost bases and less regulation and quality assurance.

There was a need, she went on, to maintain viable prices for family farms and the throughput necessary for the future development of Ireland's food industry. There was also a need to guarantee adequate supplies of safe food to the EU.

"The overall objective, therefore, is to achieve a balanced outcome both within agriculture and between agriculture and other aspects of the negotiations," she said.

"Agriculture should not bear an undue burden in the negotiations and concessions in agriculture, especially by the EU, should not be a pre-condition for discussion on other issues," she added.

"Ireland fully supports the EU position, as endorsed by the council on several occasions, that CAP reform represents the limit of the EU's negotiating brief," she said.

On export subsidies she said it was critical that the full parallelism agreed in Hong Kong was implemented and the maximum flexibility should be sought to permit phasing out of export refunds on the basis of value rather than volume.

Her statement added that it was critical that there be no change in the qualifying criteria for the so called "Green Box" supports which could undermine the eligibility of decoupled direct payments.

She concluded her statement by saying the EU's competitors should be required to satisfy the same standards of traceability, labelling, animal health and welfare, and hygiene standards as operated here.