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EU seeks way out on farm exports at WTO talks

The European Union searched feverishly at a World Trade meeting on Monday to avoid a commitment to abolish the huge export subsidies it pays to its politically powerful farmers.

A dispute over the pace of farm-trade liberalisation remained a major obstacle for the World Trade Organisation ministers meeting in Qatar to try to settle the agenda for a new round of talks to reduce barriers to global commerce.

The EU, backed by Norway and Switzerland, is unhappy with a draft text that proposes ''reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies''.

Scrapping farm subsidies would tear the heart out of the common agricultural policy, a foundation stone of the EU, and is thus politically unacceptable, EU ministers and officials say.

''Of course we want to see a clear direction in terms of the reduction of export subsidies but what we can't accept is the end point of elimination of export subsidies,'' a spokesman for the EU's executive commission, Gregor Kreuzhuber, said.

The draft text is too weak, however, in the eyes of the CAIRNS group of 18 agricultural exporting countries, which includes Australia, Argentina, Brazil and Canada.

Still, Canada has been spearheading efforts to find an alternative form of words that would satisfy the EU.

''The Canadians have come out saying that we want to find a different wording,'' Kreuzhuber told reporters. ''We are trying to be creative in order to clarify the text and we hope that during the day we can make progress.''

He said Canada had suggested that the crucial phrase ''with a view to phasing out'' did not necessarily mean elimination of farm subsidies.

''I think we should be clear about that, and this is what we are fighting for,'' the spokesman said.

Singapore's Trade Minister, George Yeo, is in charge of efforts to find a compromise.

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