WASHINGTON Efforts to launch a new round of World Trade Organization talks later this year will fail if the United States pushes the European Union too hard on agricultural subsidies, Reuters quoted French Foreign Trade Secretary Francois Huwart as saying on Tuesday.

"I told (U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick) it was important there not be any pre-negotiations, particularly in terms of agriculture," Huwart told reporters after a meeting with his U.S. counterpart.

One reason the December 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle ended in failure was a sharp disagreement between key trading partners over negotiating goals for agriculture.

Backed by the Cairns Group of 18 farm-exporting nations, the United States tried unsuccessfully to get the EU to agree to making the elimination of farm export subsidies a goal.

The WTO will hold its next ministerial meeting in Qatar in November. If the United States against insists on tough agricultural preconditions, "there would be a price to pay in Qatar in terms of failure," Huwart said.

Meanwhile, the EU continues to support of broad round of WTO negotiations, including talks on investment and national competition policies, he said.

The United States supported a narrower agenda in Seattle, arguing the EU was trying to overload the negotiations in hopes of delaying an agreement on cutting farm subsidies.

On other issues, Huwart said the French government was still deciding whether to support an agreement reached by Zoellick and EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy for resolving a banana trade dispute.

"Once we finish, we can have a definite response" to that plan, Huwart said. EU trade ministers must sign off on the agreement for it to take effect.