EC Officials Plan new Effort on Farm Price Talks

European Community (EC) leaders hope to make a new attempt to inject fresh urgency into talks on reforming the bloc’s controversial farm policy when EC agriculture ministers meet for a third day of discussions here this morning.

Community officials said farm commissioner Frans Andriessen met Belgian minister Paul de Keersmaeker late last night to plan a new initiative.

Both Andriessen and de Keersmaeker, who currently chairs EC farm ministers’ meetings, were said to be disappointed by the lack of progress in the talks so far this week.

The bloc’s executive Commission has proposed a tough package involving effective cuts of upwards of 10 pct in farmers’ returns for many crops this year.

Ministers were due to have adopted a package by April 1 but are only this week getting down to serious negotiations.

Yesterday, they discussed plans to cut cereals prices by 2.5 pct, and reduce farmers’ rights to sell surpluses to EC stores, to cut prices for fruit and vegetables by larger margins, and to impose a tax on EC-produced and imported oilseeds, a proposal which would be likely to sour EC trade relations with the United States.

Diplomatic sources said ministers, all of whom are opposed to at least one of these propositions, maintained entrenched positions yesterday, making the task of de Keersmaeker in steering his colleagues towards a compromise a daunting one.

They said he could also be treading a minefield if he sought to breach the divide between his fellow ministers over plans to change the system by which EC farm prices, expressed in a notional common currency, are translated into the currencies of member states.

West German minister Ignaz Kiechle indicated yesterday he would veto the adoption of Commission proposals in this area, saying they would unfairly affect farmers in strong currency nations.

The Belgian sources said de Keersmaeker may today present a paper to his colleagues which, while not having the status of a compromise proposal, would attempt to narrow their options.

But diplomats said the philosophical gap between ministers like Kiechle, with his commitment to maintaining traditional rural patterns, and others who see runaway farm spending as unacceptable economically, is likely to prove extremely difficult to bridge.

They agreed with EC farmers’ union association president Hans Kjeldsen who said yesterday that an agreement in June appeared to be the best that could be hoped for.