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GATT: CONSULTATIVE GROUP OF 18: 5TH MEETING, 22/23 SEPTEMBER 1977
Summary
1.
1
Notwithstanding the Secretariat's near-apocalyptic appraisal of the actual and threatened state of the open world trading system, the meeting was conducted in a leisurely and relaxed atmosphere. No doubt this was to some extent due to the fact that participants were distracted by speculation as to what was going on simultaneously in Brussels in the talks between STR Strauss and his deputies and the Commission.
2. There was an interesting series of statements on recent developments in trade policies in response to the GATT annual report; discussions on other items tended to be along now customary lines. It was agreed that the Secretariat would produce a report for the GATT Council on its own responsibility. The Chairman (Long) attempted to fix another meeting of the Group for end October to take further the inconclusive discussions on a number of items. This was resisted by the USA (Wolff) on the grounds that top people could not travel such a distance so regularly and an early meeting would result in representatives from Geneva. The Commission (Denman) supported the idea of a longer interval. The Chairman will consult in order to try and fix a date for later this year.
Community Co-ordination
3. The Commission reported on informal discussions they had held on item 5 (the Protocol of Provisional Application). There had been support for the EEC position from a number of countries and the US reaction had not been altogether adverse; they expected that a number of items concerned (customs valuation; the definition of injury; the Jones Act; and certain export bans) would be resolved in the MTHs anyway. However, the US were not prepared to accept deadlines for abolition of the agriculture waiver. The Commission had no firm ideas on how to proceed next; depending on the reception the Community's initiative received in the Group they suggest either that the matter should be reviewed again in the G18 or that it should go to the GATT Council or that it should be negotiated within the Tokyo Round.
4. On dispute management (item 3) the Commission noted that neither the US nor the EEC liked the idea of preferential treatment for developing countries, which the Commission thought more likely to emerge more prominently if discussion were left to the Framework
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