FRENCH AGRICULTURE minister Michel Barnier has said that world trade talks are heading into “dangerous territory” and warned against a sudden rush to make an agreement.
Mr Barnier also called for the long-term retention of EU subsidies for farmers in an effort to maintain food production to combat an era of rising food prices and food shortages. “It’s not just Irish or French farmers that are under threat – it is all European agriculture,” he told The Irish Times at a conference on rising food prices in Paris. “We need a balanced accord but for the moment there aren’t the conditions there in the WTO talks.”
He said other trading blocs had made little movement in the negotiations on lowering tariffs on nonagriculture goods and services in return for pledges already offered by the EU to lower tariffs on agricultural imports. The first losers from a bad WTO deal would be the least developed African countries, which can trade with the EU without the imposition of any tariffs on products imported into the Union. “There is a great risk of destabilisation in the food markets in case of a bad agreement . . . If we abolish export tariffs for the rest of the world then Africa will be the first to suffer.”
Mr Barnier said EU agricultural subsidies should be retained in the long term to counteract the sharp rises in food prices and the risk of food shortages in the future. “In the next 40 years we will need to double food production to feed a world population of about nine billion people,” he said, adding that subsidies could ensure production.
France is one of several EU states, including Ireland, that has expressed serious concern at the negotiating tactics of EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson. He is proposing deep cuts in EU agricultural import tariffs to persuade other trade blocs such as India and Brazil to agree to open their markets to European industrial goods and services.
Paris has organised an emergency meeting of trade commissioners on July 18th in Brussels to discuss a final week of WTO talks planned for the week beginning July 21st. Mr Mandelson is likely to come under heavy pressure there for offering too many concessions in the agricultural area.
Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness, who attended yesterday’s conference, said the proposals already on the table from the EU would have serious consequences for the beef and milk sectors in Ireland. But several EU states that favour reducing agricultural subsidies within the EU and promoting free trade are supporting Mr Mandelson and want to conclude the Doha round of WTO talks.
