Commonwealth leaders attack EU over trade

VALLETTA - Commonwealth leaders have piled pressure on the European Union to slash farm subsidies to secure a deal on world trade that could boost global prosperity and lift millions of people out of poverty.

Leaders of the 53 countries said they believed all nations should raise their ambitions for the current round of World Trade Organisation talks before December's Hong Kong WTO summit.

The organisation, which represents a third of the world's population and a fifth of global trade, called on developed countries to give ground on agriculture and market access.

"We call on all developed countries to demonstrate the political courage and will to give more than they receive," said the Commonwealth in a statement published after a day of private meetings of leaders.

The body singled out the European Union, which is resisting pressure to respond to a US proposal to cut farming subsidies.

"We note the offer on agriculture made by the United States of America and express the hope that the European Union and others who maintain high levels of agriculture protection respond in the same spirit," said the group.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon told reporters: "Leaders are effectively saying: 'let's see something better from the EU'," in an unusually blunt message to another world body.

The Commonwealth said the WTO should move on agriculture first to boost talks on other thorny trade issues such as opening poorer nations' industrial goods and services markets.

Commonwealth officials hope the forceful statement will restore credibility to a body which many observers and diplomats say has little place in a post-Cold War, post-apartheid world.
But the statement exposed British Prime Minister Tony Blair's divided loyalties between the club of mostly ex-colonies and the European Union, of which he currently holds the rotating presidency.

The 25 EU states negotiate trade policy as a single bloc but Blair has used his presidency to try to push partners like France and Germany to give up more of their farm subsidies.

France, a major beneficiary of EU farming programmes, and Germany are resisting reforms to the EU's agricultural spending system, which is also at the centre of a row over the bloc's future budget.

Some diplomats say the Commonwealth stance will strengthen Blair's hand in tough negotiations with his EU peers in coming weeks, but by signing up to a statement critical of the European Union he risks deepening rifts with Paris and Berlin.

Expectations for a December WTO agreement are fading, although negotiators say a deal may be reached before the talks' final deadline at the end of 2006.

While many African countries are worried about EU farm subsidies -- described by Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni as "sinful", Caribbean nations are furious at a WTO ruling which has forced the European Union to slash a preferential sugar pricing regime.

The Commonwealth urged the European Union to provide compensation to those producers - many of whose economies rely on sugar incomes - along the lines of support it will offer to EU sugar farmers.

Blair said earlier the European Union was considering such a move.

Although the Commonwealth has no political power, McKinnon said he believed its statement was substantial as it came from a more than one third of WTO members.

"This sort of statement will be taken seriously," he said.

- REUTERS