PARIS, June 25 (Reuters) - France and the European Commission said on Thursday the European Union would not make more concessions to reach a deal at the World Trade Organisation's stalled Doha round.
"We have tried our very best and we don't move," EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told reporters after meeting the newly appointed French farm minister, Bruno Le Maire, who echoed her words.
"We went to the absolute limit of what was acceptable to the agricultural community. We won't go any further," Le Maire said.
Talks on the Doha round, which was launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, have limped from missed deadline to missed deadline because of many countries' desire to keep shielding their most sensitive markets and industries.
Last year, a drive to finish the accord before elections in the United States and India fell flat when poor nations insisted they should continue to be able to protect their farmers from swings in food prices through special safeguard mechanisms. (Reporting by Laure Bretton; Editing by Louise Ireland)