EU members split over world trade talks

European Union ministers have been meeting to discuss their position in world trade talks, with the rifts among member states and with the Commission having broken spectacularly into the open.

Led by France, a group of states have warned Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, against negotiating beyond his mandate even though his offer to cut farm subsidies and tariffs in the Doha round of trade talks was rejected by many other World Trade Organisation members as too timid.

The detail of their position is confused, not least because French ministers have declined to say either in public or apparently to the Commission itself, which red line Mandelson crossed.

French Trade Minister Christine Lagarde has described Mandelson's mandate as "extremely complicated and difficult".

Some observers suspect that having insisted for most of the year that the onus for pushing the Doha round forward lay with Washington, Paris has been taken by surprise by last week's ambitious US offer to cut its farm subsidies.

It then shifted from its familiar argument that the United States had not given enough, to saying that Mandelson was giving away too much.

For his part, Mandelson maintains that he has remained fully within his negotiating mandate. Of France's warning, Mandelson said: "That reproach has not yet been substantially backed up."

Criticism

The dispute has reopened divisions within the European Union that were evident over the Chinese textiles saga this summer.

Although member states agreed to short-term limits on textile imports, a group of northern European countries including Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark became highly critical of the damage inflicted to the EU's reputation and their own retailers.

This time round, those countries say they will stick up for Mandelson against the 13 signatories of France's warning letter.

"Peter Mandelson has a clear mandate and has remained within it," Karien van Gennip, the Dutch trade minister, told the Financial Times. "When you are negotiating you need the freedom to move around."

Outside the European Union, the French and their allies seem short of powerful supporters and are likely to be blamed for undermining the round.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has made clear that progress in Doha will require larger cuts in farm protection. Those development campaign groups such as Oxfam that want a successful deal in Doha have called on the EU to stop blocking the round.

Some developing countries do not want to cut their own farm tariffs and may prefer the EU's minimalist offer on tariffs to the aggressive US one, since the Americans are demanding more cuts from them as well.

But they are not happy with the EU's lack of a firm deadline on agricultural export subsidies or its weak offer on tariffs.