Danger of an escalation in the agricultural trade conflict between Europe and the United States of America
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- See Doc. 5592, report of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development, and Doc. 5595, report of the Committee on Agriculture. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 3 July 1986.
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
2. Reiterating the importance it attaches to the harmonious development of economic relations and the liberalisation of trade between Council of Europe member states and the United States and to the leading role these countries should play in fostering a multilateral, open trading system ;
3. Recalling the support expressed at the recent OECD ministerial meeting for the launching of a comprehensive new round of multilateral trade negotiations, and the need for effective commitments to halt or dismantle protective measures in order to ensure the attainment of the overall objectives of the negotiations ;
4. Regretting that problems in agricultural trade between Europe and the United States -partners which share so many vital interests -have undergone deterioration in recent months, especially as a result of provisions governing the accession of Portugal and Spain to the European Community ;
5. Convinced that the Portuguese and Spanish accession to the Community is of common interest to Europe and the United States ;
6. Considering that the governments concerned should not yield to protectionist pressure, leading to an escalation of measures which could cause considerable harm to future prospects for trade liberalisation ;
7. Believing that the world's trading partners, and in particular Europe and the United States, should settle their economic and trade differences within the framework of institutions such as GATT and OECD,
8. Calls on the Council of Europe member states, the United States and the Community :
8.1 to do their utmost to avoid any deterioration in their trade relations, a development which could jeopardise future negotiations in this field, harm their overall co-operation and hamper economic growth ;
8.2 to settle outstanding trade problems in a constructive spirit within the multilateral framework of GATT and OECD ;
8.3 to strengthen international co-operation in order to maintain an open multilateral trading system, halt and reverse protectionism and facilitate the successful conduct of the planned new round of multilateral trade negotiations in GATT ;
8.4 to strengthen co-operation aiming to reduce structural overproduction in the OECD area, thereby facilitating world food trade and exports from developing countries ;
9. Underlines the value it attaches to the participation by members of the United States Congress in its regular debates on the activities of OECD.
