The EU will make no more concessions on agricultural subsidies, and insisted again yesterday that it was up to the US to rescue the troubled world-trade talks by matching EU offers of farm spending cuts.
Austrian Agriculture Minister Josef Proell, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the Europeans have made their spending cut offers in world-trade talks, "and it would be wrong to make a new offer."
While his comment took aim at Washington, it also was a note of caution to Peter Mandelson, the EU top trade negotiator, not to be seduced by Europe's trade partners into making further concessions in agricultural trade.
Mandelson, of Britain, scared some EU governments this month by signaling a willingness to deepen an EU offer for lower farm tariffs.
Mandelson's office has since said he still rejects a 54 percent demanded by a group of 20 developing nations.
The EU has offered a 46 percent cut, which its trade partners reject as insufficient.
Speaking at the outset of a two-day EU agriculture ministers meeting, Proell told reporters that Europe's trade "partners, especially the United States, do not move at all" to get the WTO talks moving.
An important April 30 deadline in the current round of world trade talks has been missed amid the trans-Atlantic recriminations, which continue unabated.
Proell said "the United States should make a move," adding -- likely for Mandelson's benefit -- that the 25 EU nations "speak with one voice on that."
In the trade talks, the EU has accused the US and developing nations of using Europe as a scapegoat for difficulties in completing the 149-nation WTO trade talks.
The so-called Doha round is two years behind schedule, and talks are at an impasse, with developing countries demanding that rich nations do more to open up their farm markets.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
STILL ON THE TABLE: The government is not precluding advanced nuclear power generation if it is proven safer and the nuclear waste issue is solved, the premier said Taiwan is willing to be in step with the world by considering new methods of nuclear energy generation and to discuss alternative approaches to provide more stable power generation and help support industries, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. The government would continue to develop diverse and green energy solutions, which include considering advances in nuclear energy generation, he added. Cho’s remarks echoed President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments in an interview last month, saying the government is not precluding “advanced and newer nuclear power generation” if it is proven to be safer and the issue of nuclear waste is resolved. Lai’s comment had
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
RSS