Deadlock broken over agricultural tariffs

Trade lifted a serious obstacle from the path to a much-delayed global trade deal on Wednesday, breaking a deadlock on agriculture tariffs that had pitted the EU against influential trade powers like Brazil and Australia.

The breakthrough came after the EU gave away politically difficult concessions on access to its most sensitive farm goods markets -- despite anxiety about possible repercussions for a French referendum on Europe later this month.

The deal resolves a highly complex dispute over the way that countries' existing import duties should be evaluated, which has a direct impact on the tariff cuts they will have to make under the Doha trade round.

"It was a technical calculation but it had so many real-world impacts," said Robert Portman, the new US trade representative.

Portman praise from his peers for helping to broker what he described as a "significant breakthrough" for the global negotiations, less than a week after he was sworn into office.

The deal is a midway compromise between the EU's demands and those of Brazil, leader of the Group of 20 -- a group of poorer WTO members that had pressed Brussels for more market-opening, backed by Australia and other big agricultural exporters.

Brazil, which had earlier accused the EU of exploiting the standoff to wring more concessions from poorer countries, said it was satisfied with the agreement -- yet to be approved by diplomats from all 148 WTO member states.

"We've given an important push to the negotiations," said EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, who had refused to give way until the last minute, insisting late Tuesday that she was "sticking to the European position."

The dispute centered on the way that flat-rate import duties -- typically expressed in euros per tonne of goods -- should be converted into more common percentage tariffs, based on the goods' value.

The calculations are needed before the haggling can even start on how much to cut the tariffs by. But agreed Doha guidelines state that higher tariffs will get bigger cuts, so EU negotiators held out for lower percentages to limit European farmers' exposure to foreign competition as a result of the trade round.

The EU climbdown will eventually mean tougher times for European beef, poultry and dairy farmers, whose livelihoods are political dynamite in countries like France -- where the government publicly criticized former EU trade chief Pascal Lamy last year for giving away too much on agriculture.

The WTO is running at least two years behind its original target date of last December for a new trade deal, intended to boost global economic growth by reducing barriers to trade while increasing poor countries' access to industrialized markets.

Its have set themselves a July deadline for an outline agreement covering all sectors, in order to reach a new global accord by the end of next year.