Nine of the European Union's 27 member states, including Ireland, have formed an alliance to press for better terms for the EU in compromise proposals being discussed at global trade talks.
An Italian government spokesman said this evening that the group wants to “improve the negotiating basis proposed by [World Trade Organisation chief] Pascal Lamy in order to protect the interests of European businesses and citizens”.
The nine countries are: France, Poland, Hungary, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Lithuania, Cyprus and Italy, he said.
EU trade chief Peter Mandelson has said Mr Lamy's compromises represented a basis for moving forward with the negotiation, but Irish farmers have called on Tánaiste Mary Couglan to veto any deal.
WTO chief Pascal Lamy told delegates earlier today that negotiators had made “very important progress” since talks on an accord in agriculture and industrial goods began eight days ago. "There is now a very high level of convergence on many subjects,'' he said.
France, meanwhile, has said EU governments might not give unanimous approval to a final deal if it was based on the compromise proposals being discussed.
"The risk exists that on this current basis there might not be unanimity in the European council of ministers next year on a final agreement," French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier said.
Asked whether France would use its power of veto to block a final deal, Mr Barnier said: "I did not use that word."
Mr Barnier said France wanted a "balanced and reciprocal" trade agreement, something he said was not on the table. "We encourage the European negotiators to be extremely determined," Mr Barnier said when asked whether France still had confidence in the European Commission which is negotiating on behalf of all EU member states.
He Barnier said he was speaking on behalf of the French government and not in the name of the EU presidency which France currently holds.
Elsewhere, a clash between the United States and two big emerging markets, China and India, over cutting farm and industrial tariffs threatened to derail the Geneva talks.
"We are very much concerned about the direction that a couple of countries are taking," US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said during a break on the eighth day of talks.
"I am very concerned it will jeopardise the outcome of this round," she told reporters.
Her comments reflected strong differences over US demands for countries to agree to deep tariff cuts in at least some manufacturing sectors and China and India's insistence that developing countries be given a strong new tool to guard against agricultural import surges.
David Shark, deputy US ambassador to the WTO, said resistance by India and China to opening up to more imports had thrown the global trade talks into their "gravest jeopardy" since their launch in 2001.
China responded quickly. "We have tried very hard to contribute to the success of the round," its WTO ambassador Sun Zhenyu told delegates. "It is a little bit surprising that at this time the US started this finger-pointing.