EU opens trade to poorest nations

EU Commissioner Pascal Lamy: Policy is a first

By the BBC's Janet Barrie in Brussels

The European Union has agreed to open its markets to the 48 poorest countries - those with a per capita income of less than one dollar a day.

A meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels agreed to waive immediately import tariffs and quotas for those countries on everything except weapons.

It is the first time that trade policy has been substantially modified for the benefit of developing countries

EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy

The EU sees the measure as a symbolic step in making international trade fairer.

The European Commission has been pressing the EU's 15 member states to accept the initiative for the past six months.

Weapons excluded

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, just last week added his weight to the "everything but arms" proposals.

''This is a global first,'' said the EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy.

Angola is one of the countries to benefit

"It is the first time that trade policy has been substantially modified for the benefit of developing countries," he said.

The EU has called on other countries such as the United States, Australia and Japan to join the initiative.

Farming lobbies

It also hopes the measure might persuade developing nations to support its calls to start a new round of global trade talks.

But the agreement has not been won easily.

EU countries with strong farming lobbies had worried the deal could endanger their own markets, and the compromise agreed in Brussels delays removing tariffs on sensitive goods like sugar and rice until 2009.

These concessions did not go far enough for France, though, which had sought to block the deal.

Under the EU's voting rules, though, its opposition was not enough to stop the agreement going through.