Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister, said Thursday in the French business newspaper ‘Les Echos' that further reductions were "not acceptable." He said that would mean dismantling Europe's Common Agricultural Policy, which decides the levels of farm subsidies across the EU, and would mean "an end to Europe's status as an agricultural power."
France is very protective of its agricultural subsidies as they are by far the biggest beneficiary in the EU and with globalization increasingly blamed in France for problems like high unemployment, politicians are unwilling to push through further market reforms. Some experts believe that France will not be necessarily unhappy if Hong Kong is a failure. Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization, has urged the United States and the European Union to make concessions on agriculture in order to facilitate a breakthrough in global trade talks.
The Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, who has become the unofficial spokesman for developing nations in these talks, urged Europe and in particular France, to break the deadlock. "European countries that always put a lot of emphasis on development and poverty must realize this is a crucial moment," he said.
