NEW DELHI : India, which has taken on the US in its fight to protect poor farmers against import surges, will also have to get past the EU to ensure adequate safeguards are put in place in the Doha deal.
European Commission (EC) agri commissioner Marianne Fischer Bole, while talking to select media on Thursday, said on the issue of safeguards, the EU is more or less in agreement with the text brought out by the chair of the WTO agriculture committee in December. India, however, has problems with a number of provisions of the text, which makes the remedies restrictive.
“The EC has no significant differences with the text put on the table,” Ms Boel said, adding the EC wants to ensure it gets access to the Indian market for processed products.
While the EC had on earlier occasions expressed its approval of the December text, the reiteration on the sidelines of the ongoing informal ministerial could indicate that it too, like the US, could prove to be hard to convince of the need for a more effective safeguard mechanism.
“The December text has too many restrictions on making the safeguards operational. We would certainly like those to be dropped,” said a government official, who did not wish to be named.
When talks broke down in Geneva last year, one crucial area of disagreement was over the level of protection to be accorded to developing country farmers against import surges. While the US allegedly wanted developing countries to be allowed to increase tariffs beyond the ceiling levels only when imports increased by more than 40% over the average of past three years, India reportedly wanted the trigger level to be at 20%. The US also wanted the increase in tariffs not to be more than the ceiling levels agreed to in the previous Uruguay round while India wanted developing countries to be free to decide.
The December text suggested that there should be a two-tier volume trigger. The first tier would be a volume increase of 120-140%, where the maximum additional tariff cannot exceed one-third of the current tariff ceiling levels or 8%, whichever is higher. The second tier would be over 140%, where the maximum applicable duty will not be over half the ceiling level or 12%, whichever is higher.
“These levels of increase are too low and are not acceptable. The safeguard mechanism has to go beyond giving lip-service and offer real protection,” the official added.
Ms Boel said the EU has contributed significantly to the Doha round by agreeing to 80% cuts in its trade-distorting support. “In Geneva last year, I felt we were so close to a deal. Still we failed,” she said.
Ms Boel expressed hopes that the New Delhi meet would succeed in laying down a road map for concluding the Doha round by 2010.
On whether all members of the EU, including protectionist countries like France & Germany, would be willing to go along with the EC’s commitment to liberalise agriculture, she said they had no choice.
Source : The Economic Times