EU says ready to move on farm trade at talks
GENEVA (Reuters) - European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said he was ready to show more flexibility over farm trade when he meets other top-level negotiators from around the world on Wednesday.
"The EU will show some further flexibility, indicating how we want to move forward on agriculture," he said, a day after France -- Europe's staunchest defender of agricultural protection -- failed to get control over his negotiating stance.
"But I must say honestly to my colleagues: Europe urgently needs to start seeing more clearly the benefits the Doha Round will offer in trade in industrial goods and services," Mandelson said in a statement.
At Wednesday's talks in Geneva, trade ministers from the United States, the EU, Brazil, India and Australia will try to move further towards an outline of a global trade deal to be approved by the World Trade Organisation's 148 member countries.
Their meeting in Hong Kong in December is seen as the last chance to get an agreement under the current WTO round of talks which began in 2001 in Doha, Qatar.
Brazil and other developing countries are holding out for more access to Europe's farm markets before agreeing to bring down restrictions in their economies to manufactured goods and services, both areas that Europe wants to see opened up.
The EU's offers so far on cutting farm tariffs have been rejected as insufficient by the United States, which also wants more access to the region's markets.