Tensions between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson flared on Tuesday, casting an early cloud over France’s EU presidency.
The row came as France assumed the six-month presidency of the 27-nation bloc, after Sarkozy, renewing long-running complaints, suggested Mandelson and WTO Director General Pascal Lamy were trying to force an unfavorable trade deal on Europe.
Mandelson told the BBC that Sarkozy was “undermining” the EU’s position in world trade talks, adding that the French leader’s remarks would “make it harder” at the negotiations.
PHOTO: AFP
“Yes I am being undermined and Europe’s negotiating position in the world trade talks is being weakened,” he said, adding that the bloc’s negotiating strength “comes from our unity.”
Sarkozy, who hosted the EU heads and commissioners in Paris to mark the start of the French EU presidency, earlier said that the British commissioner would be loving the publicity.
“This is someone I have known for a long time and [he] must certainly be delighted with [the] publicity, which I don’t hesitate to give him when I don’t agree with him,” Sarkozy said as EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso stood beside him.
The French leader has long been fiercely critical of the British EU commissioner, accusing him of offering excessively generous concessions on farming in fraught global negotiations at the WTO.
The latest row was sparked by Sarkozy saying in an interview with French television channel France 3 on Monday that he would block any WTO agreement that would sacrifice farm production on the “altar of global liberalism.”
“Mr Lamy and Mr Mandelson want to make us accept a deal under which Europe would commit to cutting farm output by 20 percent and reduce farm exports by 10 percent,” Sarkozy told French television channel France 3.
“That would be 100,000 jobs lost, I won’t let it happen,” he added.
Mandelson’s spokesman challenged Sarkozy’s assessment of possible agricultural job losses, arguing that the president’s figures were based on what would have happened if the EU had accepted full demands from the Group of 20 emerging market and developing countries.
The negative effects on EU agriculture production would amount to an estimated decrease on average of 1.1 percent, while employment in agriculture would drop 2.5 percent by the end of the Doha implementation period in 2014, he said.
The Doha round of trade liberalization negotiations, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, has long struggled, with all sides refusing to make big concessions.
Lamy, who has called a special meeting of the main WTO players later this month, says that progress on trade in agriculture and industrial products before the end of the month is pivotal to the overall talks.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS