Swiss Sceptical On EU/US Agricultural Joint Paper

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

18 August 2003

Switzerland has expressed scepticism with regard to the joint paper agreed by the United States and the European Union last week, which will form the basis of agricultural trade negotiations at the upcoming Cancun round of WTO talks.

"We have a basis for further negotiations," The chief Swiss negotiator to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Luzius Wasescha, told the Swissinfo news service, although he expressed doubt that consensus will be achieved on its proposed outcomes. "We are certainly satisfied that the two sides [US and EU] took the leadership and provided us with a paper but it doesn’t reflect all our concerns," Wasescha went on to observe.

The Swiss are particularly opposed to any sudden move towards reducing or eradicating tariffs and subsidies on agricultural produce, a goal very much favoured by the United States negotiators, who argue that such measures unfairly distort competition.

"If you liberalise agriculture, only the strong exporters will benefit and the weak will lose their preferential access and they will be worse off than they are today," Wasescha suggested.

"The reality is about 100 different models of agriculture in the world and so a one-size-fits-all solution will not work," continued the Swiss trade negotiator. "As long as we don’t have any concrete indication that the agriculture exporters are ready to accept our model of agriculture, I don’t see how we could support such a paper." He added that the Swiss government would not "sell out" its farmers.

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