EU asked to move first in WTO farm talks

The European Union must signal its willingness to import more US farm products and reduce domestic farm subsidies before the United States will consider cuts in its own farm spending, congressional farm leaders in the US said today.

"I think the burden is on the Europeans to jump start the WTO (World Trade Organisation)" agricultural trade talks, House of Representatives Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, told reporters after a meeting with US Trade Representative Rob Portman.

Goodlatte and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican, brushed aside European suggestions that a new US commitment to cut farm spending would help revive world trade negotiations, which appear headed for a disaster during the ministerial conference in Hong Kong in December.

"Before we can even get to the point of talking about changes that we want to make (in US farm spending), we've seen no indications from the Europeans that they're going to give us greater market access," Chambliss said.

European suggestions that the United States move first in the negotiations are off base "because the European Union has domestic subsidies that are several times that of the United States. They have tariffs that are two-and-a-half times the size" of US levels, Goodlatte said.

The EU also has a number of other nontariff barriers that would continue to keep out the five largest US farm exports -- corn, soybeans, beef, pork and poultry -- even if it agreed to eliminate tariffs and subsidies, Goodlatte said.

If the EU removed trade barriers, it would be one of the largest export markets for US farm goods, Chambliss said.

Portman and EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson are expected to discuss what steps the United States and the EU can take to rescue the imperiled trade talks at a meeting in Washington next week. EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel will also be in Washington next week.

While the United States can't offer any specific commitments yet to reduce farm subsidies, Congress will face budgetary and other constraints -- including an adverse WTO ruling against the US cotton programme -- when it begins writing the next farm subsidy law in 2007, Chambliss said.

WTO members hope to finish a new world trade deal by the end of 2006. Achieving that goal has been expected to require countries to make detailed commitments to cut farm subsidies and tariffs at the WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong. However, countries remain far from agreement.

- REUTERS