EC CONSIDERS NEW PROPOSALS TO END FARM DEADLOCK
The European Community (EC) executive
Commission will today urgently consider whether to take a new
initiative to break the current deadlock over reform of the
bloc's farm policy and to ease its budgetary crisis.
    The Commission will meet in Strasbourg following what
diplomats described as a largely fruitless special joint
meeting of farm and finance ministers on the issue in
Luxembourg Monday.
    Commission officials said farm commissioner Frans
Andriessen will ask the 17-man body for permission to present
farm ministers with a compromise plan revising proposals for
1987/88 farm prices which have divided them since they were
first announced in March.
    The most controversial aspects of these proposals are a
plan to tax all vegetable and marine oils and fats to finance
rapidly increasing production subsidies and technical measures
which would change the way common EC farm prices are converted
into member state currencies.
    West German delegation sources, who have opposed both plans
fiercely, said if the Commission dropped the oils and fats tax
plan and modified the currency proposals, there would be a
chance of agreement on other aspects of the package.
      These include measures to cut the effective price paid to
farmers for cereals and some other crops by over 10 pct.
      But a Commission spokesman said any new proposals would
include plans for revising the current oils and fats and
currency regulations.
     The Commission is anxious to avoid a complete deadlock in
meetings of EC farm ministers here this week as it fears issues
could then be referred to the EC heads of government summit at
the end of the month.
    Commission president Jacques Delors, who wants to ensure
the summit has ample time to consider proposals for new means
of financing the cash-strapped EC, said yesterday it would be
"disastrous" if farm issues had to be discussed by government
leaders.
    However, with a five billion European Currency Unit (5.75
billion dollar) EC budget deficit almost inevitable this year,
the Commission will be wary of making major concessions to the
traditionally free-spending farm ministers, diplomats said
    Belgian finance minister Mark Eyskens, who chaired
yesterday's joint meeting of ministers, said afterwards some
aspects of the farm price package will almost certainly have to
be referred to the summit.
    Although Delors' aides described the joint meeting as
useful in clarifying the issues, some diplomats said it seemed
to have merely confirmed member states' long held positions.
    Indeed, they said an extra state, Spain, seemed to have
lined up with the four others already opposing the oils and
fats tax, West Germany, Britain, Denmark and Portugal.
 Reuter
