Stiffer competition from food imports is on the cards as the EU prepares to make further concessions on market access in the ongoing Round of world trade talks.

Trade ministers meeting in Davos, Switzerland last weekend agreed to step up their efforts to wrap up the Doha Development Round - stalled since last July - in the next few months.

Though they offered no figures on what cuts in import tariffs would be necessary to clinch a deal, EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson indicated that the EU was prepared to move from its last offer of an average 39% reduction to something closer to the 54% demanded by developing countries. The alternative was for there to be “no deal at all,” he said.

Farm organisations are concerned that such an offer would go beyond the negotiating mandate given to the commission in 2004, and would pave the way for further reform of the CAP. “The EU’s offer will mean a severe contraction in farming in Europe,” said a statement from EU farmers’ body COPA-COGECA.But EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel played down such fears at this week’s farm council in Brussels. She insisted that the EU had not moved from its last offer.

“If we, hopefully, see movements from America on a reduction in their domestic supports, we will of course come back to the negotiating table,” she said. Mrs Fischer Boel was adamant that there was still flexibility to improve the offer without going beyond the mandate.

She also explained that talks about average tariff cuts were only part of the story. What was even more important was the special treatment afforded to sensitive products, such as beef and dairy products. “You cannot pick out just one single figure and see if its in accordance with the mandate,” she told journalists.

Any deal that went further would require the prior approval of EU foreign ministers, she added.