Mandelson gets EU backing in Sarkozy trade fight

By William Schomberg

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's trade chief Peter Mandelson won the backing of his boss on Wednesday in a mounting war of words with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of talks to try to salvage a world trade deal.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso continues to trust Mandelson, a Commission spokeswoman said, after Sarkozy's latest criticism of the British commissioner for offering too many concessions on agriculture in the WTO talks.

"Peter Mandelson has done a great deal of difficult work and negotiates for all 27 member states and has done excellent work," spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen said in a statement on behalf of Barroso.

In a rare public row between an EU commissioner and a European leader, Mandelson complained on Tuesday that Sarkozy was undermining his attempts to negotiate a good deal for Europe in the WTO's long-delayed Doha round.

On Wednesday, Mandelson's spokesman said Sarkozy used "false assumptions" for claiming that a WTO deal would lead to a 20 percent cut in EU farming output and 100,000 job losses.

"The figures he is parading are not valid on the basis of current discussions in Geneva," spokesman Peter Power said.

The EU's agriculture spokesman added the figure was "utterly incorrect" because it assumed Brussels accepted every demand of a group of 20 developing countries, which it would never do.

The Commission has estimated that the latest WTO proposals would cause a 1.1 percent drop in EU agriculture production and a 2.5 percent fall in employment in the sector by 2014.