EU FARM Ministers were told yesterday by the Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, that the present set of WTO proposals did not present an appropriate basis for a deal at this time.
Mr Smith, who was meeting his ministerial colleagues for the first time since Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty, told his colleagues that the proposals on the table were not balanced.
The ministers, who were meeting in Luxembourg, were updated on the world trade talks negotiations by EU commissioner for agriculture Marian Fischer Boel.
In a statement following the meeting the Minister said that the world had moved considerably since the Doha round started in 2001.
In particular, he said, the current negotiations did not take account of the radically altered international landscape in relation to food security and climate change.
He said the council should give itself the time required to reflect these important challenges in international trade policy.
Mr Smith said the passage of the US Farm Bill and the political debate in the United States raised serious doubts about the capacity of the US administration to deliver and follow through on a deal at this time.
"We should not rush into a bad deal to facilitate the US administration while ignoring the very real challenges ahead of food security and climate change," he told his ministerial colleagues.
"We must ensure that we retain an agricultural production base in Europe so that we can meet these new challenges both in the interests of the EU and of the world as a whole.
"We should not be afraid to say that we will not accept a bad deal and that we need more time to address these major issues," he said.
Officials attending the meeting said it had emerged that 20 of the farm ministers are opposed in one way or another to concluding a deal under the current proposals.
Ireland has been attempting to build up allies in opposing the proposals of EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, which would see major cuts in export supports and an increase in agricultural produce imports.
Yesterday in Geneva, Mr Mandelson was quoted as saying that a "breakdown and breakthrough both remain equally feasible" in the push for agreement at the talks.
He said he wanted trade ministers to come together in Geneva before the summer in order to prevent the WTO talks from becoming entangled in the US presidential election.
At the farm ministers' meeting last evening, Ireland abstained in a vote to revise pesticide authorisation laws that will cut the number of chemicals that can be sold in EU markets.
The proposed changes, which will now be debated in the European Parliament later in the year, will see Europe divided into zones of similar location and climate which will determine pesticide use.
Ireland joined Britain, Hungary and Romania in abstaining, claiming that the final text of the compromise proposals were too restrictive and focused too much on danger analysis of pesticides rather than risk analysis.
However, the other 23 countries voted for the proposals, which will see some countries apply exceptions under certain strict conditions for particular substances to gain bloc-wide authorisation.
The new arrangements prohibit the marketing and use of substances proven to be carcinogenic, mutagenic and toxic for reproduction.
However, substances considered hazardous could be used if available products did "not offer sufficiently effective plant protection", the Slovenian presidency said in a statement.
- (Additional reporting by Reuters)