Walsh not about to concede anything in Cancun

Concessions in the world trade talks needing further reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) "should not and would not be given", the Minister for Agriculture and Food said yesterday.

Before his departure for the WTO negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, yesterday, Mr Walsh said this was his bottom line for the talks between representatives of the 146 WTO members.

He added that the importance of agriculture in the overall WTO context was well understood. Some partners making excessive demands on agriculture were not prepared to reciprocate elsewhere, however.

"Equally, whatever is agreed in agriculture must be within the EU negotiating mandate and there must be adequate reciprocation and balance within the agriculture element," he said.

Given the dependence of our agriculture sector on exports, Mr Walsh said the outcome would have a major influence on the sector's future development.

He noted that Ireland had very high self-sufficiency ratios in nearly all major agriculture products - ranging from 163 per cent in pigmeat to over 900 per cent in beef and 1,016 per cent in butter.

"In other words, we must export a staggering 90 per cent of the butter and beef we produce. This high level of export dependence means we have a major interest in the orderly conduct of world trade," he said.

The Minister stressed the importance of a set of rules and conditions for world trade to avoid arbitrary decisions by individual countries that would be highly disruptive of trade.

It is these rules and conditions, agreed by the Governments of the WTO member-states, that are, in effect, up for review at the Cancún ministerial conference.

While failure to reach agreement at Cancún would not lead to a breakdown in world trade, the Minister said, an agreement would reinforce the rules-based system of international trade. This would benefit all WTO members but particularly highly trade-dependent and open economies like Ireland.

"The EU is now able to contribute to a new framework in a way which would not have been possible previously. This, in turn, will place the EU in a position to resist unreasonable demands," he said.

Mr Walsh added that agreement on subsidies reached last month between the EU and the US - the world's largest trading blocs - should help to lay the foundations for a successful outcome.

The large group of developing countries will also have a major role to play in Cancún, he said. To facilitate agreement with the developing countries, the EU had already undertaken a major initiative, "Everything But Arms", whereby all imports except arms from the 49 least developed countries will be allowed into the EU duty-free and quota-free.

Mr Walsh said the EU approach to trade with developing countries compared more favourably to that of its trading partners.

This has led to the EU becoming the biggest importer of agricultural products from Africa and Latin America, importing more agricultural products from the least developed countries that the US, Japan and Canada together.

"Policies which assist developing countries are not only morally right but are also in the interests of developed countries, which stand to gain from trading with more prosperous trading partners. But simplistic arguments that breaking up the CAP will solve the problem of the least developing countries are not supported by the facts," he said.