The Hindu Business Line : WTO farm trade talks end in stalemate

THE ongoing trade negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva ended in a deadlock on Wednesday following differences between the negotiating governments , the European Union, the US, Brazil, India and Australia on the core issue of agriculture.

According to reports from Geneva reaching here, the EU Trade Commissioner, Mr Peter Mandelson, had said that his negotiating authority was under pressure. He said his member States would not back him unless the focus shifted from agriculture and more liberalisation of trade in goods and services was offered.

The apparent stalemate in talks owed to the conflict of interests among major farm-producers. Trade analysts contend that Australia and Brazil remain by far the efficient farm exporters and seek to ensure both lower tariffs and subsidies. The US encounters a farm community split between some competitive exporters who desire new markets opened up abroad with tariff cuts and less efficient farmers who seek to keep their subsidies and tariffs.

On the other hand, the EU farmers are those who have much to lose from any farm trade talk liberalisation, while India would like to see rich countries' subsidies slashed but desirous of keeping the tariffs that safeguard its millions of small and low-productivity agricultural workers.

An official release issued here said the Union Commerce & Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, led India's position at the Geneva conclave of the farm talks. He insisted that New Delhi could not offer any higher tariff cuts in agriculture than what was already contained in the paper tabled by the G-20 alliance of developing countries. He also raised the issue of special products and special safeguard mechanism for developing countries with special products attracting no or minimal tariff cuts and special safeguard mechanism providing a safeguard against surge in imports. "Only an arrangement that fully safeguards our interests would be acceptable," Mr Nath asserted.

India also resisted a move by the EU to link the treatment of sensitive products (regarded as those sensitive to developed countries) and special products. "Sensitive products are sensitive commercially," Mr Nath said while special products are dependent on the food and livelihood security and rural development needs. He made it clear that "the two are conceptually different".

Blocking a move by the EU-US to enlarge the scope of talks and establish linkages of agriculture with non-agricultural market access and services, India insisted that the developing countries would not commit at any cost to more than two-thirds the extent of developed countries' tariff cuts. Mr Nath also rejected the US formulation of `slightly lesser cuts' by developing countries as "totally inadequate to meet our concerns".

With the hardening of positions among the five interested parties in farm talks and the inability of the EU to improve its offer due to extreme pressure from some of its members, the talks ended in a stalemate. The Ministerial talks originally scheduled for two days, ended abruptly late on Wednesday night with the Thursday session having been called off.

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WTO farm trade talks end in stalemate