[autom.vertaling] De aspiraties van de EU en de Landbouwonderhandelingen Doha (en)

Mr. Chairman, Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is both an honour and a pleasure to be here today, and I would like to begin by congratulating the International Federation of Agricultural Producers for organising this conference at such an opportune moment. Not only will the outcome of the next few days have implications for family farmers world wide, but today offers the last opportunity for all of us to air our ideas before we really get down to the nitty-gritty.

As I said when I spoke to you before the Seattle meeting, the family farm is an institution that is cherished by the EU. I myself come from a family farm and most Europeans, though not involved in agriculture themselves, value the production of high quality, healthy food and the protection of the EU's rural areas. And, with the eastward expansion of the European Union next May, a further 4 million new farmers and their families will be joining the 7 million that are already part of the current EU-15. It goes without saying then that while the EU comes here committed to making Cancun a success, and committed to the developing countries, we also come here committed to defending the interests of our farmers and the many varied roles they play.

I am sure you have all heard the saying, "Actions speak louder than words". In politics, this is certainly true. Too often, we politicians are accused of empty promises, of unfulfilled objectives, or of hypocrisy. In many cases it is true. But too much is at stake here for anyone to let Cancun become another example of politicians letting down the people whose views we have committed ourselves to represent.

Where the Doha Development Agenda is concerned, however I believe that the steps that the EU has taken have shown its commitment from the outset. Where we have said we will deliver, we have come up with the goods I hope to go home with the same message about Cancun.

Take CAP reform for instance. In June, we concluded our third reform in only a decade to bring our policy more into line with the goals of the Doha Development Agenda, make it less trade-distorting, and more able to support our farmers in their many roles they play.

Decoupled support is a central part of the new CAP, discouraging over-production, but encouraging market orientation, and the production of high quality food. In a nutshell, support will come in the form of a single farm payment that will be dependent on our farmers meeting obligatory quality, environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards.

Decoupled support also means less trade-distorting support. In fact, it means that by 2008, the CAP will have reduced its most trade-distorting support by 70%, and its export subsidies by 75% since 1992. It also leaves us in a position whereby we could accept to repeat the Uruguay Round tariff cut, and reduce our tariffs by a further 35% in Cancun, if we see movement from other sides. These figures are no mean feat: while the EU has realised promises, others are still hypothesising.

CAP reform has also bolstered support to the second pillar of the CAP. Through modulation, from 2007 onwards, we will be able to shift an additional 1.2 billion € per year from market support to rural development. This will enable us to extend the scope of our rural development measures and cover new support instruments for quality, animal welfare, environmental programmes, and improve investment to young farmers.

Anyone who knows someone in farming, or who takes the slightest interest in rural areas, knows that agriculture is far more than merely an economic activity. It is a way of life. It is central to environmental management, it is central to the social cohesion of rural areas, and it is central to the survival of rural communities.

There isn't a country in the world that isn't confronted by problems of rural depopulation and urbanisation. The support offered by the EU's Common Agricultural Policy ensures that we reduce this problem, not exacerbate it. It recognises the importance of rural development, it recognises the importance of improving rural opportunities, and it recognises the importance of the multifunctional role of agriculture. If we want farmers to do more than produce food, we have to support them. And if this support is undermined, we risk driving our farmers away, which spells the end of family farming, and the end of rural management.

So the issue we need to address is not so much why we support as what we support, which brings me on to my next point: the criticisms levelled against us by some of our WTO partners.

One of my favourite pieces of anti-EU rhetoric is the argument that the average EU cow receives $2 day in subsidies. This is not only untrue, it is also irrelevant in terms of the WTO negotiations. What interests us is the proportion of support that is trade-distorting this is what matters for the developing countries, and CAP reform has enabled us to take massive steps in the right direction.

The same goes for those who contend that OECD taxpayers spend $1 billion a day on agriculture. Balderdash! In actual fact, it's about one quarter of this.

But what I'm interested in here is not so much in correcting these inaccuracies, as in pointing out where the EU taxpayers' money goes:

Guaranteeing one of the highest levels of food quality and safety in the world;

Rural and environmental management; and

Animal welfare, to name but a few.

Here again, I think I have a strong case for actions speaking louder than words.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is not just in terms of CAP reform that the EU has delivered. We are committed to trade reform, and our proposals for this WTO round show just that:

We have offered to cut trade-distorting domestic farm support by a further 55%;

We have offered to make our markets more open to farm imports by slashing tariffs by 36%; and

We have offered to scale back all forms of export subsidies by up to 45%, or even phase them out altogether for certain products of importance to the developing countries.

Furthermore, we also said that we were prepared to be flexible, and in recent weeks we have proved this. We were accused of jeopardising the negotiations because we were at logger-heads with the US, yet now, we've both moved away from our starting points to conclude a comprehensive framework proposal with the Americans that covers the three main pillars: domestic support, market access, and export competition.

Of course we have other priorities too. There is the issue of non-trade concerns: the EU is not alone in its belief that the liberalisation of trade should not come at the expense of other issues. Rural development, poverty alleviation, the environment, food safety, and animal welfare, are all concerns that need to be addressed alongside the expansion of global trade. And they are all issues for which we believe support should be recognised as non-trade distorting.

In particular, we will be fighting for a better protection of Europe's high quality and regional foods. And contrary to our critics' beliefs, this is not some protectionist ploy that is only in the EU's interests.

It is in the interests of any producer whose livelihood depends on producing a unique food. Everyone here today should agree that the protection and promotion of food that is produced according to specific standards, or specific traditional methods, lies at the very heart of the family farming philosophy. It is a way of increasing the value of certain exports, and a way in which to safeguard certain rural employment opportunities. Is it right that, for example, Italian Parma Ham producers forego over 3 million € a year because they cannot sell their ham bearing the name "Parma" in Mexico or Canada?

Next, I ask you to consider the EU's position vis-à-vis the developing countries. Here again, our actions speak volumes. With the Everything But Arms Agreement that was adopted in 2001, the EU has committed itself to allowing the 49 Least Developed Countries duty and quota free access to the EU market for all products bar arms and ammunition.

We also have a series of preferential and free trade agreements in place with the developing countries. In particular, there is the recently enhanced generalised system of preferences, under which a total of 143 countries and territories benefit from a series of preferential market access arrangements to the EU market. It is no accident then that the EU imports more food products from these countries than the US, Canada, Japan, and Australia put together, or that in 2002, it imported agricultural products from these countries amounting to a value of over 35 billion €.

We're prepared to take this further still. In our joint initiative with the US, a special safeguard is envisaged for developing countries to protect sensitive products from excessive imports. We've also proposed lower tariff cuts and longer implementation periods for the developing countries, and have called for other developed countries to follow duty-free access initiatives such as the EBA.

Another point the EU is firm on is the need to allow the developing countries a differential system of preferences to account for their different stages of development. Here I would like to make a point concerning the joint proposals put forward by Argentina, Brazil, China, India et al. last month. I was asked at a press conference last week why I was so "irritated" by this paper. Why, when this is the Development Round, was I not prepared to concede that it was the developed countries that should take all the steps while the developing countries stand fast in their positions?

The answer I gave that journalist is a point I would like to reiterate today: the term 'developing' has a very broad remit. The problem the EU has with this paper is that it spells a deal from which only the net exporting developing countries would profit, while the other, less developed ones, would continue to be marginalised in a system plagued with injustices.

Not only this, but its level of ambition is also much lower than what would result from the system of differential treatment that we propose, and it seems to overlook the issue of the environment in the expansion of global trade. So it is not through a lack of commitment that we reject this proposal, so much as our recognition of what we are all trying to achieve in this round with regard to development: a deal that benefits all farmers equally.

Furthermore, it is no good focussing only on the flaws of developed countries' policies. It is not the EU whose net exports have increased in recent years. Our production levels and surpluses for almost every commodity have steadily decreased with each reform.

It is the countries in the Southern hemisphere which have seen the most significant net export gains. Take sugar for example. Whilst our net export share of the world sugar market has decreased from 18.5% to 15.8% over the last ten years, Brazil's has increased from 7.1% to a massive 34.9% over the same period.

Not only this, but a massive 70% of customs duties paid on goods exported from the developing world are levied by other developing countries. It is not surprising then that studies have shown that anywhere from 2/3 to 4/5 of the gains from trade liberalisation will come from the opening up of developing country markets.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There is one final point that I would like you to consider today: we must remember that trade liberalisation on its own is not the answer to all the world's ills. Yes, it is one of the pre-conditions for development, but it is not going to resolve the need for structural reform. It isn't going to address bad governance. These need to be addressed separately if the benefits of trade liberalisation are really going to reach all of the world's poor.

To conclude, I come back, once more, to the point that actions speak louder than words. Yes, the Doha Agenda is ambitious but we must remember what we all signed up to two years ago:

• We committed ourselves to maintaining the process of reform and liberalisation of trade policies;

• We committed ourselves to making sure that everyone, in particular those in developing countries, benefit from the increased opportunities offered by world trade;

• We committed ourselves to sustainable development; and

• Most importantly, we committed ourselves to making this a development round in every sense of the word.

It is actions, not words, which will make a difference. The time for one-upmanship is over. The time for blame games is over. And the time for reproducing the old rhetoric is over. Citing "facts", in inverted commas, based on tenuous arguments and fictional figures is not how we are going to make the positive progress we need in these negotiations. This will result from flexibility, compromise and realism. It is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that the commitments we made in Doha two years ago bear fruit.

We cannot afford to let our commitments to the DDA become an empty promise, either to the developing countries, or to the respective farmers we have come here to represent.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am not a clairvoyant: I cannot predict the outcome of the next few days. All I can say for sure is that all of us here this week are players, signed up to the same team, and signed on to the same objectives. The EU, for its part, has come to Cancun to play hard, and play for success. Success however, requires the combined effort of the whole team. I trust the other members will match our efforts.

Thank you for your attention.