EU position on Agriculture before kick-off of Cancun Ministerial

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The European Union has come to Cancun to make this meeting a success. And we have come here with a strong track record how serious we are about this. We have fundamentally reformed our farm policy to make it much less trade distorting, more competitive and more in tune with the environment. This is what many of our partners had asked for. We have delivered.

We have agreed on a joint framework on agriculture with the United States. This is what WTO members asked for at the Montreal Mini Ministerial. We have delivered. But this framework should not be seen as a stitch-up between the two big elephants. We have assumed our responsibility to inject new life in the farm talks. This will be to the benefit of all players.

Let me tell you what this meeting is not about :

It is not about black and white, about North against South. If we seriously want to give developing countries a better deal, especially the poorest countries in the world, then it is not enough to play on the old stereotypes. Of course, the rich countries have to do more, have to substantially reduce their trade distorting farm subsides, have to open their markets and allow developing countries to get a special deal.

We are fully committed to this. We have offered them more time to implement reduction commitments, which should be lower than for the industrialised countries. We have offered a special safeguard clause which allows developing countries to protect sensitive products from excessive imports. We have proposed lower tariff cuts and longer implementation periods. And we are calling for an obligation that at least 50% of imports from developing countries to the developed world should be entirely duty free.

We have made a major move on export subsidies, an issue so important to many. We are ready to completely eliminate export subsidies for certain products of importance to developing countries. Which products? Here we are open for discussion. Europe has already come a long way. With our reforms, we are able to cut our export subsidies by 75% compared to the 1993 level.

But the farm policies of rich nations are not the only reason why developing countries have not reaped enough benefits from trade liberalisation. The World Bank says that 80% of the benefits from farm liberalisation would come from reductions in the barriers between poor countries themselves. Europe has an avarage farm tariff of only 10%, Brazil has 30% and the average tariff of all developing countries amounts to 60%. I therefore fully agree with the renowned economist Baghwati who said that not only rich countries had to act. Also developing countries have to reduce trade barriers for their own good!

And we need to take care of the weakest developing countries. Not all developing countries are on the same level. Burkina Faso cannot compete with Brasil, Mali not with Thailand. More advanced developing countries have to do more than the least developed.

All this just go to show that also these issues have to be addressed, if we want to make real progress. «Rich countries bashing» may grab the headlines, but it won't solve the problems.

The WTO talks are also not about ending all farm support. Not all forms of subsidies are bad. This is backed up by OECD research.

The Doha Round is about substantially reducing trade distorting payments. And there Europe is ready to play ball. With our farm policy reforms we can now reduce the most trade distorting support by 70% compared to the 1993 level.

Europe has shown that it is in for business, even if this takes difficult und sometimes painful decisions on the homefront. If our partners do the same, I am hopeful that all 146 WTO members will be able to sign up to a meaningful framework for farm trade liberalisation at the end of this meeting.

Thank you very much.