Allan Beattie and Tobias Buck report that the E.U. may be signalling a willingness to make a further concession on agriculture: EU signals bigger cuts in farm tariffs in Doha round (Financial Times, May 19)
The European Union on Friday signalled its readiness to offer bigger cuts in farm tariffs in the tortuous Doha round of trade talks, but continued to insist that such a move must be met by concessions elsewhere.
The EU’s current offer is to cut farm tariffs by an average of about 39 per cent and exempt up to 8 per cent of tariffs from the cut, offering instead a new but limited import quota.
The G20 group of developing countries, led by Brazil, has asked for an average 54 per cent cut, and the US has called for a reduction of 66 per cent.
A spokesman for Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, responding to press reports that Brussels was offering to raise its average cut to around 50 per cent, confirmed that the EU would consider “moving towards but certainly not as far as” a 54 per cent cut.
He also insisted that this improvement depended on concessions by other key participants, including a much lower ceiling for industrial goods tariffs than the 30 per cent that Brazil and India are currently proposing.
The EU and US have previously asked for a 15 per cent ceiling, but observers close to the talks have suggested that the EU may be willing to increase that figure by 2-3 percentage points.
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