Hong Kong: The stalemate continues for talks on agriculture during the ongoing World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong.
The EU remains adamant. In the green room discussions, where ministers haggle in private over key issues, the EU refused to agree to an end date for export subsidies on farm produce.
It wanted a deadline for other forms of export subsidies: food aid, export credits and guarantees and monopoly exports through state trading enterprises.
India said there could be no forward movement without an agreement on this limited issue. So the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee is likely to incorporate all divergent views in the text for further discussion.
"Since they have not agreed on this it has not been possible for India to move forward," said India?s Minister of Commerce Kamal Nath
Meanwhile a draft deal has been agreed on duty free and quota free imports from the least developed countries.
This is being touted as the most significant development at the talks so far. But it is more likely a political sop to bring around the LDCS who are holding out, fearing that a cut in farm and industrial tariffs will erode preferential access to the rich country markets that they currently enjoy.
But the package is riddled with holes. It is not binding. It cannot be adjudicated in the dispute settlement body. And rich countries can temporarily exclude certain items.
The WTO is a pet hate of diametrically opposed groups, the liberalisers and the anti-globalisers. South Korean farmers do not like it because it means they cannot continue with subsidised agriculture. Phillipino protests regard it as an instrument of the US, a former colonial power.
Says Berna Ellorin of Bayan USA, Phillipines: "There are those who want it to get out of services, there are those who want it out of agriculture and there are those who want it to just shut down."
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