The abrasive issue of agricultural subsidies will come under the spotlight at the WTO again today as the 146 member states set out to resurrect deadlocked trade liberalization talks.
More than six months after the talks collapsed in the Mexican seaside resort of Cancun, negotiators are due to gather in the WTO's agriculture committee for a week to tackle the first item on their fraught agenda.
Agriculture is one of the most controversial issues and in the past has proved enough to tear trading titans apart.
Developing countries, backed by major farm exporters like Australia and Canada, are demanding that the biggest trading powers, the US and the EU, dismantle their subsidies for farm exports.
Other smaller countries, such as Japan, South Korea and Switzerland, are also trying to defend their heavily subsidized farming systems.
Although diplomats say the climate has improved since they clashed in Cancun, the battlelines are still sharply drawn.
"We are looking for the EU and the US to agree that we will set an end date for eliminating these subsidies," Australian ambassador to the WTO David Spencer said.
The EU, which is exceptionally drafting its top farming official, commissioner Franz Fischler, into the talks today has offered to pare down its subsidy regime.
But Brussels is only ready to remove support from products which are of specific interest to developing countries.
It is also anxious to avoid handing over a trade advantage to rich exporters such as Australia and New Zealand.
"This is a major offer, an important degree of flexibility. But we still haven't received an answer to this proposal," a diplomat at the EU mission to the WTO said.
The US rallied to the idea of setting a deadline on the elimination of export subsidies at the beginning of the year.
The senior US trade representative, Robert Zoellick, has also indicated that he would be ready to include discussion of US export credits, which the EU regard as subsidies in disguise.
"Everyone is professing to be flexible," Spencer said.
Australia, along with its 16 allies in the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters, met the G20 group of developing countries, including Brazil and India, on Thursday to prepare for the week long talks.
Over the next few weeks, diplomats hope that momentum gained in the agriculture talks will help them restart negotiations on the broader Doha round of trade talks which, on paper, must be completed by an end of year deadline.
But diplomats indicated they were aiming first for an agreement this summer on the "modalities" or framework for the negotiations before they enter into devilish detail.
"What's important is to get the concepts in there and then to get the figures agreed during the rest of the year. We would be three-quarters of the way there," said WTO chief spokesman Keith Rockwell.
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