Gatt row rears up to threaten fragile truce

THE SLUMBERING Gatt row yesterday roared into life and threatened to tear apart the delicate consensus reached last month, testing political tempers to breaking point just three days before the Edinburgh summit.

The French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, issued a statement that restated his government's belief that the Gatt deal implied deeper cuts in production than those already agreed under last year's hard-fought European Community farm reform package.

'There can be no discussion in Geneva on agriculture unless there is substantial progress on the non-agricultural dossiers,' Mr Dumas said.

France formally notified its EC partners that it might veto a farm trade deal with the United States. Mr Dumas handed EC colleagues a declaration saying France would, if necessary, block last month's US-EC deal as contrary to its 'very important interests'.

France's formal statement was carefully couched in the conditional mood. 'France considers the draft farm agreement struck on 20 November 1992 by the Commission representatives goes beyond the mandate set by the Council (of EC ministers) . . . and would have unacceptable consequences for France's agricultural economy,' it said.

Denmark joined the growing ranks of those such as Belgium, Spain and Ireland who fear, like France, that the Gatt agreement is not compatible with changes in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Denmark said that during its presidency, which begins in January, it would re-examine the whole issue of CAP reform.

In the interests of political unity, the 12 foreign ministers finally agreed to a statement which papered over divisions by declaring that negotiations were continuing. 'We reaffirm the great importance of non-agriculture subjects for a success in the (Gatt) Uruguay Round . . . the development in Geneva of the technical elements of the agriculture dossier will have to take due account of the concrete results achieved in these other subjects,' it said.

But no amount of rhetoric could disguise the fact that Gatt is one of the most divisive issues facing the Community: so divisive that there is a concerted move to ensure it does not dominate the Edinburgh summit to the detriment of other vital issues, such as the EC budget and the Danish problem. The statement may be seen as a grudging gift to France, offered in the tacit agreement that Paris will choose not to poison the atmosphere in Edinburgh.

'Nobody is in the business of trying to isolate France, indeed France is not interested in isolating herself,' said the Foreign Office minister responsible for European Affairs, Tristan Garel-Jones.

David Currie, junior Minister for Agriculture, was less charitable. He argued that the French insistence that there can be no deal on agriculture until there is agreement on all the other dossiers 'threatens to bring the Gatt talks to a complete halt'. 'If the French think they can make this linkage, others will do the same and before you know it you will have a ring of empty chairs around the negotiating table,' he said. He agreed that a number of countries had problems with the US-EC deal on oilseeds, but said: 'No other delegation is saying 'we don't want to go ahead'.'

The United States has indicated that it will wait until the Community has put its house in order, senior EC sources said last night. Yesterday's developments suggested this might take longer than originally thought. The presence of hundreds of protesting farmers in Brussels yesterday, kept in line by Belgian police with water cannons, was a further reminder of how high feelings run.