Slap on the wrist for EU farm commissioner

By Paul Mooney

In an extraordinary move, 15 EU farm ministers last Friday wrote a stinging letter to EU farm commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel publicly accusing her of failing to negotiate vigorously on behalf of EU agriculture in the WTO talks.

Her predecessors, including Franz Fischler, never received such open political criticism although Ray MacSharry was memorably labelled 'Cromwell' by the Irish farm organisations back in the 1980s for his stance in trade talks.

The ministers who rapped Fischer Boel on the wrist include those of France, Spain, Italy, Poland and Austria as well as our own Mary Coughlan.

The letter reminded the Commissioner that concessions offered by the EU were conditional on parallel reforms by other trade blocks. It stressed the importance of one of the founding principles of the CAP, community preference, and warned that the EU should not yield too far on market access. It also pointed out that the EU Commission mantra of non-trade issues such as animal welfare and the environment had been completely ignored by other trade blocks.

The Commissioner was warned that she must negotiate within the mandate laid down by the Council of Ministers. She was warned:

• not to agree to a cut off date for ending of export refunds. She should instead opt for a period of implementation of reform of the scheme which would only begin once the new WTO deal was agreed.

• to stress that the EU could not go beyond the newly agreed CAP deal of Luxembourg 2003, particularly on farmer direct payments.

• to highlight the EU's openness to trade from poorer countries.

Pointedly, the ministers also asked the commissioner to personally attend all agriculture-related discussions. This highlights the distrust among farm ministers of EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandleson who is regarded as willing to sacrifice EU agriculture in return for trade concessions on services, etc.

This week Fischer Boel and Mandleson responded to the letter stating their commitment to their negotiating mandate but warning that the Doha trade round was about more than agriculture.