Ireland and France are under growing pressure to soften their opposition to phasing out farm subsidies in order to secure agreement at the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar. As the conference enters its final day today, the WTO's 142 members were close to agreement on some key issues but remained deadlocked on agriculture.
The European Union Trade Commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy, told EU ministers last night that, as the talks entered their final phase, they must not panic. "What these talks need is a crisis. We mustn't be the first to blink. We must preserve EU solidarity," sources quoted him as saying.
The WTO's director general, Mr Mike Moore, said there were still too many areas of substantial disagreement to guarantee that the meeting would succeed in launching a new round of trade negotiations.
The delegates are expected this morning to agree a declaration that would allow poor countries to produce cheap versions of patented medicines for such conditions as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. The issue of access to medicines is crucial to developing countries, many of whom have lost millions of their citizens to Aids.
There were signs of agreement too on an important issue for the United States - the tightening of anti-dumping rules, which are used to block imports sold below the market price.
But the EU remained isolated on agriculture, particularly over export subsidies to farmers, which both the US and developing countries want to see eliminated.
The EU has rejected a draft declaration which commits WTO members to "phasing out" such subsidies.
Most EU member-states are prepared to abandon their opposition to the wording but Ireland and France insist that, since phasing out implies eventual elimination, the phrase is unacceptable.
But Canada's Agriculture Minister, Mr Lyle Vanclief, made it clear yesterday that, far from agreeing to softer wording, the world's biggest food exporters want to make it tougher.
"We would like to see the text strengthened. We want the elimination of export subsidies as soon as possible," he said.
The European Commission and other member-states have exerted considerable pressure on Ireland and France to move on agriculture in order to ensure that the WTO agrees to initiate a new trade round.
Irish officials hope that they can win over some member-states with promises of support on issues of concern to them. And officials were last night considering replacing the words "phasing out" with "phasing down".
As officials worked through the night on what they hoped would be a final, draft text, a number of other issues remained unresolved.
India has threatened to block a deal unless developed countries give textile manufacturers greater access to their markets.
Portugal, Spain and Italy, the EU's biggest textile producers, are determined to resist such a step and the US has said that the issue should be part of a new trade round but not a condition for starting it.
The EU was battling last night to preserve as much of its environment agenda as possible but looked set to abandon a demand that countries should be allowed to ban imports because of a possible but unproven threat to health.
The plenary session paused for a minute's silence to honour the victims of yesterday's air crash in New York.
The delegates were shocked by the news, fearing that it could have been a terrorist attack.
