EU in the Media

"EU Has Offered Concessions"

By Peter Mandelson

USA Today, December 13, 2005, p. A12

A bit like Christmas carol time, a World Trade Organization Ministerial brings out the chorus of critics with their familiar favorites about Europe and its agricultural policy.

That makes it a good moment to consider some essentials. Without the European Union's efforts, the Doha Round is unlikely to have gotten this far. We have radically overhauled our farm policy — our 2003 Common Agricultural Policy reform now means that 90% of Europe's payments to farmers no longer distort trade. In the USA, reform is in the future. With more than five times more farmers than in the USA, Europe's average farmer now gets less than half as much as his American equivalent does.

In 2001, we offered completely tariff- and quota-free access to our market for all imports from the world's poorest countries, something we are urging the United States to offer, too. Last year, it was Europe's offer to end all export subsidies that got the Doha Round back on track after the limbo following the collapse at Cancun, Mexico. This October, we offered to slash our average agriculture tariff in half and reduce by 70% our trade-distorting agricultural supports, creating wide new access to our markets.

Most of our critics have taken the easy road by pointing the finger rather than sharing the burden of making this WTO round work. Many just go with the flow. When we have been concrete in our proposals and credible, others have offered little or nothing.

The Doha round has become stuck in a go-nowhere negotiation about agriculture. The countries that stand to be the biggest winners from new agricultural liberalization must now engage in real negotiations on trade in services and industrial goods. There have to be gains for all; that is what a negotiation means.

Far more is at stake in this WTO Trade Round than many realize or admit. We have to demonstrate that a big, inclusive, multilateral organization can work and yield results. I believe it can and it should. We must avoid turning the Hong Kong conference into a public relations exercise — or a blame game.

We need to show that we can work together to increase prosperity for all. How about it?

Peter Mandelson is the European Union's Trade Commissioner.