EC Negotiators to Meet With U.S. on Trade : Tariffs: The talks to avoid a trade war could begin as early as this weekend.

BRUSSELS — European Community negotiators said Wednesday that they will meet with their U.S. counterparts within a week to try to avert a trade war that could damage struggling economies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The announcement signaled that the 12-nation bloc has at least temporarily bridged differences over dealing with U.S. demands for further cuts in subsidies paid to EC farmers. Britain, Germany and others have urged compromise, while France has pressed for retaliation.

The Bush Administration has given the EC until Dec. 5 to resolve the dispute or face import taxes on $300 million worth of European products, mostly French white wines. Washington and other nations argue that the subsidies keep European farm prices unfairly low in world markets.

Community leaders say they will respond with punitive duties on a similar amount of U.S. goods. That might bring further action by the United States and trigger a tariff war that would cut sales of goods from both sides and could affect thousands of jobs.

Although farm lobbies are strong in most of the European Community nations, particularly in France, influential British and German industrial groups, which fear that a trade war would further slow economies, apparently had the last word.

“What the world economic situation requires at the moment is calm discussion and not saber-rattling,” said British Prime Minister John Major, who now holds the community’s rotating presidency.

“There is an urgent need to come to terms with the Americans,” EC spokesman Nico Wegter said. “There is a very good reason to believe . . . that a deal can be made.”

But there was no sign that the community had changed its bargaining position of resisting going beyond the subsidy cuts adopted last spring.

However, officials said chances for an agreement improved after EC Farm Commissioner Ray MacSharry agreed to resume his role in the negotiations.

MacSharry, an Irishman, quit last week and accused EC Commission President Jacques Delors of interfering to protect French interests. Delors, a French Socialist, has seemed conciliatory in recent days.

Germany also appeared to pressure France into a more accommodating position, raising the specter of a loss of trade if no deal can be made.

“If we withdraw into Fortress Europe and the Americans withdraw into the United States, that would be an idiotic form of politics,” German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said Wednesday after a meeting with Major.

MacSharry and EC Trade Commissioner Frans Andriessen hope to meet quickly with their U.S. counterparts, Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan and Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills.

The meeting could come as early as this weekend, but most likely will be early next week, officials said. EC agriculture ministers, traditionally the toughest in rejecting concessions on subsidies to their 9 million farmers, are to meet in Brussels Monday and Tuesday.

A breakthrough is needed to restart the Uruguay Round of world trade talks, an ambitious effort by 108 nations to lower barriers to trade. The talks are sponsored by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.