A3-0149/94

Resolution on the outcome of the Uruguay Round of GATT multilateral trade negotiations

The European Parliament,

-having regard to its resolutions of 11 October 1990, 19 November 1992, 17 December 1992, 15 July 1993 and 30 September 1993 on the state of the multilateral trade negotiations of the GATT Uruguay Round,

-having regard to its resolution of 22 January 1993 on trade and the environment,

-having regard to its resolution of 16 November 1993 on GATT and the crisis in the textile industry,

-having regard to its resolution of 19 January 1994 on the outcome of the multilateral trade negotiations of the GATT Uruguay Round,

-having regard to its resolution of 9 February 1994 on the introduction of social clauses into the multilateral trade system,

-having regard to the results of the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, as set out in the GATT Final Act of 15 December 1993,

-having regard to the motion for a resolution by Mr Rossetti on the multilateral trade negotiations of the Uruguay Round (B3-1249/91),

-having regard to the motion for a resolution by Mrs Ferrer on the need to protect the European tanning industry (B3-1397/93),

-having regard to Rule 45 of its Rules of Procedure,

-having regard to the report of the Committee on External Economic Relations and the opinions of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development and the Committee on Development and Cooperation (A3-0149/94),

A.whereas the GATT contracting parties set out the topics, objectives, institutional structures and timetable for the eighth multilateral round of GATT negotiations in the Punta del Este declaration of September 1986,

B.whereas the GATT contracting parties undertook a mid-term review of the negotiations at the ministerial conference held in Montreal in December 1988; whereas they did not succeed in concluding the negotiations at the ministerial conference held in Brussels in December 1990 as planned,

C.whereas the GATT contracting parties have succeeded in reconciling their differences and achieved wide-ranging results in many spheres in the past three years of negotiations,

D.whereas the Council decided on 15 December 1993 to approve the outcome of the Uruguay Round of negotiations,

The results of the negotiations in general

1.Notes with relief that after more than seven years of intensive negotiations the GATT contracting parties have managed to bring the eighth and hitherto most ambitious multilateral round of GATT negotiations, the failure of which would have had unforeseeable implications for the world economy, to a successful conclusion;

2.Is convinced that the successful conclusion and the implementation of the results of the Uruguay Round will act as a perceptible stimulus to growth and employment at a time when the economy of the Western industrialized countries is in global recession;

3.Notes that the impact of the GATT agreement varies between developing countries and even between ethnic groups, with a possible loss of national revenue in the next few years for the food-importing countries of Africa south of the Sahara and the LDCs; other developing countries, however, for example textile-producing or food-producing countries, will benefit from the GATT agreement and, in general, developing countries will be able to benefit from improved market access for their export products;

4.Expresses its appreciation to the Commission, which conducted the negotiations on behalf of the European Union (EU), for its success throughout the negotiations in effectively defending the sometimes divergent interests of the EU's Member States against the other parties to the negotiations;

5.Welcomes in particular the fact that the conclusion of the Uruguay Round has resulted in the extension of the multilateral trade system to include such important spheres as trade in services, the protection of intellectual property and rules on trade-related investment measures, since the mere lowering of tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade in goods is proving increasingly inadequate in view of the advancing globalization of the world economy;

6.Is aware that a final judgment on the balance of the overall outcome of the negotiations will not be possible until an in-depth study has been made of the contributions all GATT contracting parties make on tariff reductions and the opening of the service sectors;

7.Notes, however, on the basis of the results of the negotiations currently available, as set out in the Final Act of 15 December 1993, that the negotiating objectives of Punta del Este have by and large been achieved and in some respects even exceeded and that the results conform to the negotiating mandate which the Commission received from the Council before the negotiations began;

8.Regrets however that the pledge given at Punta del Este to conduct an evaluation with a view to ensuring effective application of the promised 'differential and more favourable treatment' for the developing countries before the formal completion of the negotiations has not been fulfilled, and insists that this undertaking still stands;

9.Emphasizes that the outcome as a whole takes due account of the interests both of the EU and its most important trading partners and of the developing countries, which in many spheres have been granted extensive derogations and longer transitional periods for the implementation of the results;

10.Points out that the concessions made by certain partners fall short of their economic potential in the case of tariff reductions and the opening of their service markets;

11.Acknowledges the major efforts made by many developing countries in agreeing to extensive, often unilateral tariff reductions during the negotiations and in committing themselves to these reductions in GATT;

12.Is convinced that the economic development of the developing countries will benefit from the agreed liberalization of trade in agricultural products and in textiles and clothing, for example;

Institutional aspects

13.Welcomes explicitly the establishment of a World Trade Organization (WTO) as a framework encompassing all multi- and plurilateral agreements negotiated in GATT;

14.Is particularly hopeful that more forceful and stringent dispute settlement procedures within the WTO framework, possibly representing the beginnings of international trade jurisdiction and incapable of being blocked by a single GATT member, will make a significant contribution to reducing the number of bilateral trade conflicts;

15.Welcomes the fact that the contracting parties have reached agreement on a reinforced and more complex system for resolving disputes which will make it possible to abandon unilateral commercial defence measures which are not compatible with GATT rules;

16.Welcomes the fact that the EU as such will join its Member States as a WTO contracting party and sees this as strengthening the common commercial policy of the EU for which Article 113 of the EC Treaty provides;

17.Wishes to be informed in good time of the structure, bodies, working methods and decision-making procedures of the WTO;

18.Insists, with a view to democratic control over the policy of the European Union and implemention of the WTO and work in its bodies, on the assent of the European Parliament, as provided for in Article 228(3), second subparagraph, of the Treaty on European Union;

Individual areas of the negotiations

(a) Tariff reductions

19.Notes with satisfaction that the tariff concessions as a whole will lead to a reduction in tariff barriers to trade which will exceed the 30% target set at Punta del Este;

20.Is disappointed, however, that some industrialized countries, including the USA and Japan, did not agree to a more significant reduction in their top tariff rates, with which they protect themselves in particular against imports of textiles, clothing and leather goods;

21.Acknowledges explicitly the contributions made by many developing countries in agreeing to extensive tariff reductions and their commitment to these reductions in GATT in line with their move away from the concept of import substitution towards the concept of an export-oriented development strategy;

(b) Agricultural trade

22.Appreciates that the EU had to agree to reduce support and protection for its farming sector in order to comply with the Punta del Este negotiating objectives in this sphere, but is convinced that these concessions will jeopardize neither the basic principles nor the fundamental instruments of the common agricultural policy (CAP), which was reformed during the Uruguay Round, as prescribed in the Commission's negotiating mandate;

23.Welcomes the fact that direct income subsidies, one of the main elements of the CAP reform, have been accepted by the GATT contracting parties as complying with GATT and that there is therefore no obligation to reduce them;

24.Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure, pursuant to the Edinburgh agreements, that direct payments for 'green box' policies continue to be a feature of the budget for the duration of the peace clause;

25.Refers in this context to the importance of the 'peace clause' agreed for nine years, whereby all the contracting parties commit themselves to refraining from taking action against these forms of government subsidies by the GATT dispute settlement procedure;

26.Regards the agreed conversion of all restrictions on market access into equivalent tariff rates (tariffication) and the reduction of these tariffs and of export subsidies by 36% and of subsidized exports by 21% over a period of six years as a contribution to greater economic rationality in agricultural trade;

27.Regards the agreement on substitution products as a binding commitment to restrict imports of these products to the 1990-1992 level;

28.Urges the Commission, should the Uruguay Round agreements impose adjustment burdens on agriculture in the EU in addition to those already arising from the CAP reform, to consider how these burdens can be offset by further aid measures that conform to GATT;

29.Concedes that additional costs will arise for developing countries which are net importers of agricultural products as a result of the expected increase in world market prices and therefore welcomes the assurance of further aids to these countries for the development of their own agricultural sectors;

(c) Textiles and clothing

30.Is convinced that the 20 years of protection afforded by the Multifibre Arrangement have given the European textile and clothing industry enough time to adjust and that it should therefore be able to cope economically with the gradual reintegration of the trade in textiles into GATT by the year 2005;

31.Refers, moreover, to the improved GATT provisions on safeguard clauses in particular and on the protection of intellectual property, which should afford the European industry better protection against unfair foreign competitors and against imitations;

32.Emphasizes that the progressive liberalization of the trade in textiles played a major part in gaining the developing countries' approval of the inclusion of services and the protection of intellectual property in the GATT rules and that they have also undertaken to open their markets significantly to textile and clothing imports from the industrialized countries;

33.Considers, however, that as regards market access the offers of several suppliers are unsatisfactory; calls on the Commission, therefore, to continue the negotiations with great resolution, seeking a withdrawal of the UE's tariff offer solely for those products for which the main suppliers have not submitted a significant offer;

(d) GATT rules

34.Welcomes the rewording of Article XIX of GATT on safeguard measures, which, by introducing a degree of selectivity vis-à-vis the suppliers mainly responsible for the damage, will permit the waiving of voluntary restraint agreements that do not comply with GATT should there be a sharp rise in imports in the future;

35.Hopes that the rewording of the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy provisions will tighten up the procedures and define them more clearly and so make both the protectionist abuse of this instrument and attempts to circumvent anti-dumping duties more difficult;

36.Expects to be consulted by the Council on any amendment to the EU's anti-dumping regulation to bring it into line with the revised GATT provisions;

37.Assumes that the agreement on subsidies will impose stricter discipline on all contracting parties, thus reducing possible trade-distorting effects, while enabling the EU to maintain its regional, environmental and research policies, which are essentially based on non-specific government subsidies;

(e) Trade in services

38.Regards the establishment of multilateral rules on international trade in services set out in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as an urgently needed complement to the world trade order;

39.Considers most-favoured-nation treatment, national treatment and the transparency of government arrangements to be essential principles for trade in services, but is aware that service markets, which are usually subject to extensive internal rules on access, can only be opened up gradually;

40.Considers, therefore, the approach chosen by the contracting parties of negotiating not only an agreement in principle, the GATS, but also national schedules of initial commitments and exemptions from most-favoured-nation treatment in specific sectors for a limited period to be objectively justified;

41.Is disappointed, however, that the USA in particular was not prepared to make a significant contribution in the areas of financial services, sea transport and telecommunications that would enable EU suppliers to enjoy conditions comparable to those which foreign suppliers enjoy in the EU's internal market, but welcomes the continuing negotiations on these issues and calls on all parties to continue these negotiations with a view to meeting their objectives within the time-scale proposed;

42.Assumes that the agreements on trade in services will not prevent the audiovisual sector from continuing to receive government assistance, which is considered essential for the preservation of Europe's cultural identity;

(f) Protection of intellectual property

43.Regards the agreement on the protection of trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) as a decisive breakthrough in completing the world trade system, since it will lead to a significant reduction in the trade- distorting effects of differing or, in many cases, non-existent national provisions;

44.Is aware that only major concessions by the developing countries made the approval of this agreement possible, but also points out that better protection of intellectual property rights will lead to an improvement in conditions for foreign investment in the developing countries;

45.Calls on the GATT contracting parties to incorporate into their national legislation without delay the commitments entered into in the TRIPs agreement and also to provide for effective sanctions where protected property rights are violated;

(g) Trade-related investment measures

46.Hopes that the implementation of the agreement on trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) will further improve the investment climate especially in the developing and also the newly industrializing countries, which have often pursued a discriminatory policy towards foreign investors in the past;

(h) Developing countries

47.Welcomes the fact that developing countries too will benefit from the outcome of the Uruguay round and that their integration into the world market will be improved; believes however that further efforts are needed to establish a just world economic order which will enable developing countries to secure equitable prices for their goods;

48.Notes that in the field of agriculture the losers from the outcome of the Uruguay round will include Less Developed Countries (LDCs) which are at the same time net importers of food, and, in addition to the aid announced, calls for development aid from the industrialized countries to be increased at least to the UN target figure of 0.7% of GDP;

49.Welcomes the fact that within the framework of the WTO developing countries have been authorized not to comply with all rules equally; considers however that weaknesses remain in the form to be taken by the WTO as regards the scope for ensuring that the interests of developing countries are taken into account; takes the view that the option of cross-retaliation as an instrument of trade policy is irrelevant in the case of developing countries; regards open decision-making procedures within the WTO as absolutely essential;

Concluding remarks

50.Expects the procedures for the ratification of the outcome of the Uruguay Round to be set in motion by all the GATT contracting parties immediately after the Marrakesh Ministerial Conference, so that the implementation of the results may begin and the WTO launched in early 1995;

51.Reaffirms its call to be consulted by the Council on the conclusion of the whole negotiating package on behalf of the EU by the assent procedure defined in the second subparagraph of Article 228(3) of the EC Treaty immediately after the package has been signed;

52.Will decide on its approval when it has been fully informed by the Council and Commission of all aspects of the outcome of the negotiations and subject to the provisions of the EC Treaty concerning assent;

53.Regrets that social policy aspects in the form of a social clause based on the minimum standards established within the ILO framework were not discussed during the Uruguay Round negotiations and therefore calls on the Commission to state clearly that it advocates putting the subject of social clauses on the WTO's agenda;

54.Hopes that the GATT contracting parties will agree on a work programme for the WTO on trade and the environment that enables greater account to be taken of environmental factors in the world trade system in the future;

55.Sees the planned inclusion of elements of competition policy as a further significant addition to the world trade order in view of their growing importance for the effective opening of markets after the general lowering of tariff barriers to trade;

56.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Member States, the Secretariat of GATT and the GATT contracting parties attending the Ministerial Conference in Marrakesh from 12 to 15 April 1994.