Failure to reform the European common agricultural policy would mean the end of the Doha agreement to open up world trade to less developed countries, the Financial Times reports Clare Short, Britain's international development secretary, warned Tuesday.

"If the EU isn't willing to reform the CAP, the EU will throw away Doha and that would be a terrible responsibility. We must reform the common agricultural policy to fulfill the Doha commitments," Short told a committee of members of parliament. Her comments came a week after Tony Blair, prime minister, and Jacques Chirac, president of France, argued angrily over the future of farm subsidies at an EU summit.

But Short said it would be wrong to "gang up" on France, which is a net recipient of EU aid. "We musn't allow France's problems to throw Doha away but we musn't gang up on France either," she said.

She called on European Union leaders to press ahead with proposals to scale back direct aid for farmers under the CAP in a planned interim review in 2006.

The ministerial meeting of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico, in September next year would be crucial to keeping to the development agenda agreed at Doha. The WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar, last November set a framework for measures to lift barriers blocking poor countries' access to world markets, including the scrapping of tariffs and subsidies.