US President George W. Bush met European Commission President José M. Barroso at the European Commission in Brussels in February 2005 - Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, said rich countries should cut their highest farm tariffs by 50 per cent compared with the 90 per cent reduction suggested by Rob Portman, his US counterpart.. Agricultural tariffs average about 61 percent around the world, compared to 12 percent in the United States and 31 percent in the European Union. India's farm tariff is as high as 114 percent

President George W. Bush will meet European Commission President José Manuel Barroso at the White House on Tuesday and the trade talks known as the Doha Round will be top of the agenda.

Also on Tuesday, European Union Ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Luxembourg to discuss their position in world trade talks following a request by France with the support of Ireland and eleven other Member States.

France has claimed that European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has gone beyond his mandate but no French Minister will specify in public or to the Commission how he has breached it. Irish Ministers also appear to be clueless and state that they are both in favour of a successful Doha Round and against offering concessions on the reduction of farm product tariffs (see related story below).

In remarks to reporters on Monday in London, Christine Lagarde, French Trade Minister, said Mandelson's mandate was "extremely complicated and difficult" but added: "Our understanding...is that he may have gone a bit too far."

"Peter Mandelson has a clear mandate and has remained within it," Karien van Gennip, the Dutch Trade Minister, told the Financial Times. "When you are negotiating you need the freedom to move around."

Ms van Gennip said: "What we saw this summer in textiles is that the price of being too protectionist of parts of our industry is high."

The position of Ireland is that reduced tariffs on industrial goods is good for it economy while high tariffs on farm goods is also good for its economy.

Ireland is the highest per capita beneficiary of the Common Agricultural Policy and Ms van Gennip's country the Netherlands, foots the bill for Irish farming.

The simple fact about the split in the European Union is that the Bush Administration has called Europe's bluff by proposing deep cuts in tariffs, in particular rather than focus only on domestic subsidies.

Last Tuesday, the EU put forward an amended agricultural market access offer that would provide less flexibility in cutting tariffs but envisages a maximum reduction of 50 per cent for very high tariffs compared with 90 per cent proposed by the US. The percentage of so-called sensitive products, subject to smaller tariff reductions, would be cut under the EU proposal from 10 to 8per cent of tariff lines, against the US proposal of 1 per cent. This would still leave 180 EU products treated as "sensitive".

The EU, which spends roughly three times as much on farm support as the US, said it would cut by 70 per cent those domestic subsidies believed to distort trade. The US had requested the EU to agree to an 83 per cent cut, offering a 60 per cent reduction itself. The EU did not give a date for ending farm export subsidies to match the US offer of 2010.

Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, said rich countries should cut their highest farm tariffs by 50 per cent compared with the 90 per cent reduction suggested by Rob Portman, his US counterpart.

Europe and Japan maintain high farm tariffs and want to protect some products from cuts.

“The US proposals are likely to be seen as excessively ambitious by a vast majority of WTO members,” an EU spokesman said. Japan said the US offer was “not a basis for negotiation”.

While the focus is on subsidies, the World Bank has estimated that 92 per cent of the benefit of rich nations' agricultural liberalisation to the developing world will result from tariff cuts.

Will Martin, a World Bank trade economist, was reported as saying that large gaps between permitted ceilings and actual applied tariffs meant that the EU's proposed cut might not result in real increased access.

“Our research indicates you need to get up to cuts of around 75 per cent on the highest tariffs, combined with strict limits on exemptions, before you start making a real difference,” Martin said.

Agricultural tariffs average about 61 percent around the world, compared to 12 percent in the United States and 31 percent in the European Union.

The United States requires big tariff cuts in major markets around the world to persuade its farmers to accept lower subsidies, its negotiators claim. Meanwhile, the opposition of the EU to consider deep cuts to its tariffs gives major developing countries such as India, which has average farm tariffs of 114 percent, an excuse to keep their markets closed.

The Doha Round

The Make Poverty History had its high point last July when concerts and street demonstrations focused the attention of the leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) rich industrial countries and the Russian Federation on the need to wipe out up to $55 billion of poor nations' debts.

Eighteen countries - 14 in Africa and four in South and Central America - are due to have their debts to the IMF and the World Bank cancelled when the deal comes into effect.

For IMF debt, that will be the end of the year. For the World Bank it is likely to be July 2006, the start of the international lender's new financial year.

While the agreement on debt relief was an achievement for the UK Presidency of the G8, the outcome of the current talks on the reform of the international trade system, is likely to have  a greater long term impact on poor countries.

Every two years the WTO holds a major summit called a ministerial meeting. In 2005 this will be in Hong Kong in December. Previous meetings took place in Cancún (Mexico) in 2003, Doha (Qatar) in 2001 and Seattle (USA) in 1999.

The November 2001 declaration of the Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, provides the mandate for negotiations on a range of subjects and other work, including issues concerning the implementation of the present agreements.

The negotiations include those on agriculture and services, which began in early 2000. A number of other issues were added. The declaration set 1 January 2005 as the date for completing all but two of the negotiations.

The Fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico, in September 2003, was intended as a stock-taking meeting where members would agree on how to complete the rest of the negotiations. But the meeting was soured by discord on agricultural issues, including cotton, and ended in deadlock on the “Singapore issues”. Real progress on the Singapore issues and agriculture was not evident until the early hours of 1 August 2004 with a set of decisions in the General Council (sometimes called the July 2004 package). The original 1 January 2005 deadline was missed. After that, members unofficially aimed to finish the negotiations by the end of 2006.

RELATED: Ireland, France oppose farm tariff cuts in response to US offer as emergency EU meeting is called