Controversial proposals to firm up a commitment to begin phasing out agricultural subsidies in Europe were being discussed here last night by EU ministers at a series of private meetings on the fringes of the Earth Summit.
According to informed sources, some EU countries are prepared to go further than they did on this highly contentious issue at the trade talks in Doha last November, in an effort to demonstrate Europe's bona fides on key issues of importance to developing countries.
"The wording being talked about is more forthright than Doha," one source said. At that crucial World Trade Organisation meeting, the EU promised merely to enter negotiations "with a view to phasing out all forms of export subsidies and . . . market-distorting domestic supports".
The G77 group of 130-plus developing countries have long maintained that the EU Common Agricultural Policy and its US equivalent have prevented fair competition in farming worldwide and curtailed access by their own farmers to potentially lucrative markets for their produce.
The total value of farming subsidies in the EU, the US and other rich countries amounts to $350 billion a year, of which the EU's share amounts to $60 billion. "That would be enough to fly every cow in Europe round the world first class," one complainant observed.
The Irish delegation at the summit, which is currently being led by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, includes two representatives of the IFA. They are pressing for Ireland to stand firm, along with France, in defending the Common Agricultural Policy.
The French were out-voted at Doha, however, leading one observer to comment at the time that there was "a strong smell of burned croissants". But other EU member-states with less powerful farming lobbies are pressing for further concessions to break the deadlock in Johannesburg.
The latest talks come in the wake of a serious row here after the US sought to portray the EU in a dim light by accusing its delegates of "walking out" of two contact groups on Thursday night. An EU move to leave 14 crunch issues to be resolved by ministers was also viewed poorly.
These issues - all still in square brackets in the draft text of the Johannesburg "Plan of Action - include human rights, sanitation, energy, trade and finance, climate change and globalisation, as well as some of the "Rio Principles" agreed at the first earth summit a decade ago.
Delegates are conscious that there is now a thin line between success and disaster at this summit. "It's like a poker game for really high stakes," said one source involved in the negotiations. "Everyone knows that there has to be movement, but nobody wants to be the first to show their hand."
On trade, according to Friends of the Earth, "the summit is rapidly turning into an annex of the Doha WTO talks. There are about 200 references to the WTO in the text. Language on globalisation, for example, has been lifted straight from the Doha text" - largely at the behest of the US and EU. The text even says that WTO rules would take precedence over multilateral agreements on the environment.
Yesterday 200 environmental groups at the summit insisted that delegates would have to ensure that environmental agreements "can never be overruled by trade rules".
Corporate accountability also remains a crunch issue, especially after Friends of the Earth's revelation that a planned oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey's Mediterranean coast would depend on what BP called "free public money" and an exemption of the project from Turkish environmental law.
On climate change, the US wants to ensure that there will be no reference to the Kyoto Protocol and is trying to draft words which appear to be concerned about the issue while removing all references to practical action. The EU is backing Norway in calling on all countries to ratify Kyoto.
In his first contribution after arriving at the summit yesterday, the Minister, Mr Cullen, said the EU was "determined to turn words into action. That is why we are committed to securing a positive outcome on environmental targets, and deadlines when they must be met."
