European Community (EC) agriculture ministers ended a three-day meeting in Luxembourg still deeply divided over plans by the EC Commission to curb the cost of the ECs farm policy through sharp cuts in farm returns. Their chairman Belgiums Paul de Keersmaeker told a news conference after the meeting he would work on a paper setting out possible compromise solutions in the next two weeks with the hope that the ministers can get down to detailed negotiations at a meeting in Brussels on May 18. But diplomats said the talks this week had served little more than to clarify member states positions on the complex package of measures proposed by the commission. The executive body has proposed measures which would result in price cuts this year for many crops of upwards of 10 pct. Other controversial plans include a tax on EC-produced and imported oilseeds and fats to bring in two billion European currency units to help the ECs cash crisis and changes in the conversion of EC common farm prices into national currencies which would inflict extra burdens on West German and Dutch farmers. De Keersmaeker attempted yesterday to narrow differences between EC states on the oils tax proposal the currency measures and the key question of cereals prices and associated measures. But he told journalists We have used this meeting to reach the point at which real negotiations can start at the next meeting. Ideally they should have started now but our procedures took much longer than planned. Ministers are in theory supposed to agree a price package by April 1 each year although this target is seldom reached in practice. Diplomats said on all the points there were widely diverging views with Britain and the Netherlands the countries most supportive of commission proposals for cereals price cuts strongly opposed to the oils tax. However de Keersmaeker said West German objections to the monetary proposals could prove the most difficult issue to resolve. This is a very tough political nut and because of the very nature of the problem there is no technical solution he said. Commission sources said farm commissioner Frans Andriessen was prepared to alter some technical aspects of his proposals to make an agreement easier. However because of the ECs budgetary crisis he had little room for concessions to pleas for a cut in the impact of his proposals on farmers incomes as several ministers led by Germanys Ignaz Kiechle are demanding. EC Commission president Jacques Delors has warned that the EC will have an accumulated budgetary deficit of over five billion Ecus by the end of this year even if the commission farm price package is adopted in its entirety.
EC FARM MINISTERS END PRICES MEETING STILL DIVIDED