BRUSSELS (AFP) – EU top trade official Pascal Lamy claimed Monday a strong mandate to negotiate a “rebalancing” of world trade rules at crunch world trade talks this week, which he hopes will produce a “win-win” accord.

But Lamy insisted notably that he would not agree to concessions on the thorny issue of farm subsidies beyond hard-won reforms to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) agreed last year.

Lamy made the comments after European Union foreign ministers endorsed a joint stance at the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks starting in Geneva Tuesday, although France again spelt out its differences over the deadlock issue of farm aid.

“We now have a very strong and clear mandate with a lot of political energy,” Lamy told reporters after a special ministerial meeting called by France specifically due to its WTO concerns.

“A negotiation like this is about a win-win before being about (the) blame game,” he added.

The WTO is seeking an accord this week to revive trade negotiations which collapsed last September in Cancun, Mexico.

Failure to reach a deal in the so-called Doha round of talks — in particular ahead of changes in the EU and US leadership later this year — could lead to a stalemate in the talks that could last for years, WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi has warned.

Lamy conceded that the Geneva talks could yet collapse. But if they did the EU would not be to blame.

“If it works, fine, if it doesn’t work… I think everybody will recognise that there is one… partner in these negotiations who has been putting coal in the machine for quite a number of months. And this is the EU,” he said.

He was speaking after EU ministers said in a statement that they had endorsed the approach proposed by the European Commission, the EU executive arm.

But they said the EU “underlines the need in particular to improve the balance of the text presented by the chairman of the WTO general council on several important aspects and that the outcome of the July negotiations should maintain the momentum of the DDA (Doha development agenda)”.

This was seen as a reference to French concerns to hang on to generous subsidies for its large farm sector.

A proposed accord by WTO general council head Shotaro Oshima in mid-July calls for an end to subsidies to farm exports, but does not call for parallel action by the chief exporters, among them the United States.