US President George W. Bush said today that Washington was willing to work with the European Union to abolish farm subsidies as early as 2010, but Europeans responded skeptically.
French President Jacques Chirac said the EU had offered last year to end farm export aid as long as others committed to do so too under the Doha Round of global free trade talks, a point also made by chief EU trade negotiator Peter Mandelson.
"We want to work with the EU to rid our respective countries of agricultural subsidies," Bush told reporters at a G8 summit of world leaders, where Britain was pressing rich nations to commit themselves to fairer trade with Africa.
Mr Chirac told a news conference Mr Bush had not yet made any official offer or raised the issue with other leaders at their summit in the luxury Gleneagles hotel in Scotland, insisting that Europe was first to make a phase-out proposal.
"We're waiting now for our American friends to do the same," he said. Britain floated 2010 as a date ahead of the summit, but its idea concerns export subsidies rather than aid for farmers as a whole.
French Farm Minister Dominique Bussereau defended the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which eats up about 40 per cent of the centralised EU budget, while a European Commission farm spokesman said the EU was already overhauling its CAP system.
Mr Mandelson, who negotiates on behalf of the 25-nation EU on trade issues, told BBC radio that people should stop posturing and agree on the next phase of trade liberalisation. "Everything is far too urgent for plodding," he said. "I'm afraid there is too much circling around each other."