NZ premier urges EU to end farm export subsidies

Date: 24/04/03

By David Cronin

Reforms of the EU's €40 billion-a-year Common Agricultural Policy have not been "anything like satisfactory" to date, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on a visit to Brussels yesterday (23 April).

New Zealand, where one in eight of the workforce is employed in agriculture, is calling for the elimination of all trade-distorting subsidies in the farm produce sector.

Speaking to European Voice, Clark said the 2001 Doha ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization gave a "clear negotiating mandate" for working on a phase-out of such subsidies.

The EU currently spends €5 billion per year on export refunds for farmers.

Clark, the first New Zealand premier to visit Brussels in a decade, argued that the Union needs to address those subsidies if the Doha development round of trade talks is to prove fruitful: "We won't get a successful round without moving on export subsidies. And Europe wants a successful round."

A WTO deadline of 31 March this year for securing an outline agreement on farm trade reform passed without a breakthrough - largely due to differences between the EU and the US.

However, the Labour leader said the fact that a deadline on one of the most contentious areas of trade proved elusive should not be a cause for despair.

"These negotiations tend to thrive on a sense of crisis," she commented. "We have to be optimistic."

New Zealand is a member of the 17-strong 'Cairns Group' of countries, which account for one-third of the world's agricultural exports. Other members include Australia, Canada, Argentina and several Asian countries.

Clark admitted that New Zealand had focused "enormously" on Asian relations during the 1990s. "That was appropriate, given our geography."

However, she said the coming enlargement meant its relations with the EU needed to be "reprioritised".

"That's not to say anything else has to give way. But we can't neglect a relationship as important as this, particularly when the EU's common foreign and security policy is going to be a huge force internationally."

Clark described as "distressing" the fissures that developed between EU governments over Iraq: "The Iraqi crisis drove all friends apart. The big issue for the next few years is to get all the friends back together."

The Union's eastward expansion has led New Zealand, which has a population of four million, to upgrade its diplomatic ties with prospective member states. It will, for example, open an embassy in Warsaw next year, its first in eastern Europe. "The furthest east we've ever gone is Vienna," added Clark.

Wellington is also seeking more preferential visa concessions to New Zealanders hoping to travel to the EU. From May next year, a new agreement is due to enter into force under the Schengen passport control system. Through this, New Zealenders travelling to the Union will be restricted to a three-month stay. Applying to all member states, bar Britain and Ireland, the new scheme will replace existing bilateral deals between New Zealand and national EU capitals.

During talks with Romano Prodi, the European Commission President, Clark has been arguing that it would be preferable if New Zealanders could stay in the Union without a formal visa for six months, with the possibility of extending that period for a further half-year. She said that Wellington would be willing to reciprocate by offering similar rights to EU citizens visiting New Zealand.

"It would be in the interests of European tourism, if people from first world countries can travel freely and spend their own money," she added.

During her three-day visit to Brussels, Clark was due to hold talks with several commissioners including Pascal Lamy (trade), Franz Fischler (agriculture), Margot Wallstrom (environment) and Erkki Liikanen (enterprise and information society), as well as Javier Solana, the high representative for foreign affairs.

Clark became prime minister in November 1999 after the Labour Party defeated the National Party, whose leader Jenny Shipley headed a coalition government for the previous two years. The last New Zealand prime minister to visit Brussels was Shipley's predecessor, Jim Bolger, in 1993.

Reforms of the EU's €40 billion-a-year Common Agricultural Policy have not been satisfactory to date, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on a visit to Brussels on 23 April 2003.